Mike Benz: How USAID Set Up A Censorship State In Brazil

RealClear Politics ^ | 5 Oct. 2026 | Ian Schwartz

[MtnClimber]

In an interview on "The Benny Show" with Benny Johnson, Mike Benz argues that USAID played a broad role in shaping Brazil’s political and institutional landscape.

MIKE BENZ: What's happening in Brazil was a full-on Truman show. You had the media funded by USAID. You had the universities funded by USAID. You had the staffers of the Supreme Court and the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), the election court, USAID. You had all the constitutional law advocates funded by USAID. You had the LGBT activists funded by USAID.

It's full spectrum. If you were to walk down a city block in Sao Paulo or, I don't know, Brasilia, you would have a 360 vision of institutions funded and puppeteered by USAID without ever knowing it. In fact, USAID, knowing what they were doing, and I need to be careful about what I can and can't say here, let's just say, would anyone be surprised, for example, if USAID was going around and telling its grantees in Brazil to remove the USAID logo so that it doesn't get out that grantee's connection to USAID?

They knew what they were doing. They knew how sensitive it was. Would you be surprised, for example, if USAID, which basically set up the censorship state in Brazil, and this is actually something, let me quickly pivot to say, it is true that this is the first Brazilian election since the 2020 municipal elections in Brazil that does not have USAID money slushing around Lula and his allies, but is still an election that is in many ways under the thumb of the ghost of USAID. There is something I call kind of the clockmaker's dilemma, which is USAID, even when you remove it, the institutional and legal changes that a country goes through can live on

---

TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: bennyjohnson; brazil; leftism; mikebenz; usaid

[MtnClimber]

How long will it take to clean up the corruption?

[Opinionated Blowhard]

In the 1970s, liberals screamed about how the US government manipulated foreign governments to advance the interests of the US “military industrial complex” and other US corporate interests. They said that foreigners hated the US because we did so. Its now coming out that the US has been manipulating foreign governments to advance liberal / Woke policies and to support liberal governments, including using totalitarian means, to a far greater extent that the 1950s and 1960s CIA ever dreamed of. USAID was just plain evil. Yet if the Dems get back in power, they will ramp it right back up.

[GOPJ]

You had the media funded by USAID. You had the universities funded by USAID. You had the staffers of the Supreme Court and the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), the election court, USAID. You had all the constitutional law advocates funded by USAID. You had the LGBT activists funded by USAID.

I"m guessing the sexual weirdo community's been behind a lot of the bad stuff in DC...and around the world.

[dljordan]

The question is who was USAID working for?

[Ditto]

The question is who was USAID working for?

Not the American people, that’s for damn sure.

[PGalt]

https://patriots.win/p/1ATVaDS61n

[AZJeep]

Soviet Union expansion strategy was to help countries in need.
With that help came commissars and soon the country was in communist control.
BTW China is using similar strategy as we speak.
USAID was created to kind of function in similar way, to offset Soviet influences and infiltrate foreign countries to swing them the US way.

Unfortunately, USAID attracted mostly US lefties staffers so it quickly turned into US left infiltration.
Funded by billions (~23B) of US taxpayers money, it turned mostly away from helping starving children to helping influence the politics.
And not just in poor countries, but in Europe and USA!
The money send abroad often find its way back to the USA thru shadowy links and end up supporting all kind of lefty causes in the USA!
Just incredibly giant network of private, NGA and government institution committed to advance liberal and socialist causes all over the world.

BTW, it still exists, as it was created in act of congress so only congress can legally abolish it!

[AZJeep]

Well, for certain American people.
Clinton, Obama , Biden, they all loved it!
Samantha Powell, the Obama/Biden top operative was the Biden era administrator.

[Jan_Sobieski]

Here’s where this gets scary. USAID money went out with strings attached. Countries were forced to pass LGBT laws. And Only LGBT supporting candidates were able to secure the money, assuring that the most leftist governments would prevail. China and Russia don’t allow LGBT or push LGBT on the nations. It’s as though the US has become more evil than those nations!?!

[TimSkalaBim]

BTW, it still exists, as it was created in act of congress so only congress can legally abolish it!

What a great idea for the Republican congress to work on!! They can pass legislation to keep their voters happy and prevent it from coming .... oh.

[Honorary Serb]

I had a sleazy guy as a high school classmate, who went on to join USAID after graduating from the University of Arizona. Since he ended up working in Bosnia in the 1990s, I suspect that he was also CIA.

Meanwhile, I went to Brazil for a project around 2000. I was in Brasilia for part of the project, and visited the cathedral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Brasília

I have had many Brazilian friends (mainly scientist and physicians), and hope that they can ditch Lula and USAID/CIA!