Against the wishes of President Donald Trump, House Republicans have restored full funding to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in an appropriations package, allocating $315 million to the anti-Trump organization for the upcoming fiscal year.
For years, critics have been calling for NED to be reformed or defunded over its connection to George Soros, history of censorship against conservatives, and interference in foreign affairs in the name of “promoting democracy.”
The Trump administration froze nearly $240 million in funding to NED in February, as recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), then headed by Elon Musk.
The Treasury Department blocked the disbursement of funds to the organization prompting NED to complain it couldn’t make payroll.
“It’s been a bloodbath,” an NED staffer told the Free Press at the time. “We have not been able to meet payroll and pay basic overhead expenses.”
In March, NED sued the Trump administration, arguing that the freeze was illegal as the funding was congressionally approved. The organization was partially successful in court and was granted access to some $167 million of the frozen funds.
Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recommended that Congress eliminate federal funding for NED in May, “citing the organization’s pattern of partisan advocacy and hostility towards Republicans,” the Daily Caller reported.
Yet on July 23, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State and Related Programs advanced an appropriations bill that would allocate $315 million to the embattled organization for the upcoming fiscal year.
Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) vowed on Tuesday to submit an amendment to the bill defunding NED.
“I’ll be submitting an amendment to defund NED when this bill moves to the House floor for a vote,” Crane posted on X. “Let’s see where everyone stands.”
In a statement to the Daily Signal Wednesday, Crane said: “Have we learned nothing from the exposure of USAID over the past six months? The National Endowment for Democracy is a government-backed NGO that has supported censorship programs, regime change politics, and fueled anti-American agendas abroad.”
“NED’s current board is made up of so-called ‘disinformation experts’ who played a key role in attacking the First Amendment, propping up the Russia hoax, and controlling the narrative around COVID-19,” Crane added.
“While President Trump requested no funding for the CIA cutout, House Republicans quietly slipped $315 million into the upcoming National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations bill,” he noted. “Hopefully, my amendment will end this disgusting waste of taxpayer resources and, at the very least, put representatives on the record.”
“NED may have had a noble beginning, but it has strayed FAR beyond its original mission,” Crane concluded.
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee, defended the package in a statement to the Signal.
“The FY 2026 National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs bill aggressively advances President Trump’s America First agenda by cutting funding by 22 percent, all while strengthening the national security of the United States,” Diaz-Balart stated.
“Among its many achievements, it eliminates Biden-era wasteful and divisive programs on climate, gender, DEI, and other irrelevant programs that diluted the core mission of America’s foreign policy and worked against our national security interests,” the congressman added. “It also prohibits funding to the [World Health Organization], [United Nations] general fund, [United Nations Relief and Works Agency], and several other anti-American international organizations and supports American values and U.S. standing in the world by banning ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ programs that violate the free speech rights of American citizens.”
Diaz-Balart also praised the bill for drawing “a clear line: allies are treated as allies, and enemies are treated as enemies.”
“Through the strategic use of NED, this bill doubles down on confronting hostile adversaries such as Communist China and Iran, two of President Trump’s highest national security priorities,” he stated. “The underlying principles that guided the formation of this bill are what is best for American national security and for the American taxpayer.”
The National Endowment for Democracy was established by an Act of Congress in November 1983 as a U.S. taxpayer-funded non-governmental Organization (NGO), ostensibly “to promote democratic institutions and values around the world.”
While NED claims it “does not engage in domestic political activity, nor does it promote ideological agendas,” critics argue that the organization has veered toward the left and engaged in partisan activity in recent years.
NED has faced criticism from both the right and the left over its meddling in foreign affairs.
The Center for Renewing America, for instance, described the NED in February as “the tip of the proverbial spear” regarding efforts to engineer political change in Ukraine.
Among the NED board of directors is Victoria Nuland, who served as under secretary of state for political affairs during the Biden administration and led the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs during the Obama administration. Nuland played a key role in playing up the now-discredited Steele dossier, which erroneously alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
NED subsidiaries—the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute—have reportedly received over $1.5 million from George Soros’s Open Society Foundation since 2020 and have allegedly “adopted his ideological agenda, especially overseas.”
NED in 2020 funded the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British anti-free speech organization that “labeled the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason and the New York Post as the ten ‘riskiest’ outlets for disinformation.”
GDI provided these lists to advertising agencies in an effort to cut off ad revenue to the targeted sites.
Outlets deemed “trustworthy” included NPR, the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, all of whom enthusiastically peddled the Russia hoax, among other government hoaxes.
Critics also say NED has always served as a front for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Allen Weinstein, a co-founder of NED, admitted to the Washington Post in 1991 that a lot of the organization’s overt meddling was done “covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
NED also reportedly discriminates against Republicans and conservatives in its hiring practices, despite being required by law to be bipartisan.
The organization is “staffed almost entirely by Democrats, and its public programs feature mostly Democrat speakers and discussants, suggesting intentional viewpoint and employment discrimination against conservatives and Republicans,” the Heritage Foundation reported a year ago.
As for its anti-Trump bent, NED President Damon Wilson once stated that Trump “has an uncanny ability to divide both Americans and the United States from its democratic allies,” and claimed the president “never understood” that “our democracy is the source of our strength and standing in the world.”
The bill requires approval by both chambers of Congress and Trump’s signature, and according to the Daily Caller, a senior administration official said the restored NED funding “might be a dealbreaker.”