Ryan: Elizabeth Warren does the Wing Ding

Photo by Sean Ryan

Two thousand people yipped and howled as Elizabeth Warren bounced onto the stage like it was a stairmaster and she was a gym rat.

Sold out. Maximum capacity. Whole place writhing, all 30,000 square feet, with tight rows of folding chairs like checkers on the dancefloor big as a Walgreens.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Under the disco ball that hung from the dark blue ceiling, the crowd screamed like Warren was Led Zeppelin and the year was 1970, when really she was a 70-year-old Senator and this was a fundraiser called Wing Ding, in Clear Lake, Iowa, at the Surf Ballroom, where Buddy Holly spent the last few cold hours of his life.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Warren did not stand behind the podium like Biden or Bernie Sanders.

She was a yoga grandma! A rapping pastor! A beat-boxing cop! An energetic manager! A cat who thinks it's a puppy!
It was like she needed to move around the stage and wave her arms and fire up the congregation or else the floor would belch into lava.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Iowa would work its magic on Warren. By the end of the weekend, she emerged as a top contender, a position she'd maintain with alacrity, then build on.

In her turquoise blazer and her shoes-that-meant-business, she strolled out to the edge of the stage and gave her speech like a natural-born specialist of hootenanny.

Only thing missing was The Who's "Teenage Wasteland," or, better yet, that "Sail away, sail away, sail away" song by Enya.
Warren was a car commercial, the kind directed at Millenials, with plastic indie rock and a phony "who gives a shit" vibe. She was expensive cheese from right around the corner. She was Nancy Sinatra, but without Lee Hazelwood.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Voice like a stack of hay catching fire, she made promises. She riled the crowd. And it was an odd sight, the way these meek folks attempted to get rowdy. The way they grimaced and writhed, it was like seeing the reclusive kid volunteer to be the mascot.

It was like they were trying to match the intensity of Trump rallies. No politician has been able to do that so far. The man fills arenas, for God's sake. And his supporters wait for hours outside hoping to get inside. Then he makes them wait. Let's the place get feverish.

Until people are so psyched that they literally cannot remain seated, and they stand their eagerly for thirty minutes, gasping every time a song ends with the hope it means he has arrived.

The Wing Dinger — God bless them — just didn't have that dragon energy, that ravenous devotion. Have you ever seen that show "Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job"? The people in the ballroom were hyperventilating and spazzing like characters from Tim & Eric. The whole occasion would have been a pickpocket's dream.

Variously, they bulged and shuffled and freestyled to themselves. Who gave the kids sugar cookies at the Baptist youth sleepover? You know they can't handle it, you know they get twitchy, so manic it's almost violent.

And that fed Warren, revved her manic engines.

Full speech: Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Iowa Democratic Wing Dingwww.youtube.com

If this had been the 1980s, I would have suspected everyone there had spent all day railing cocaine. And Warren would be the Sly Stone of the event, guarding the vault full of drugs.

If only she could have pulled out a guitar and played AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" or performed a duet with a cat on a keyboard. My dad and I had arrived late, and both of us struggled to relax our eyebrows because this scene was unbelievable. It must have been especially odd for my father, who emigrated from Ireland at 33.

And right now he was frowning because it was so loud in there.

As Warren shouted into a handheld mic, my dad turned to me, almost upset, "Who is she?" he asked, but before I could answer, he said, "I do not like that woman."

*

When Warren was 12 years old, her father suffered a debilitating heart attack.

He didn't die, but he wouldn't be able to work for years.

The medical bills got so bad that Warren'sfamily nearly lost their home. The car was repossessed. Those were gritty, emaciating days.

Her older brothers joined the military. Her mother got a minimum wage job at Sears. And, at 13, Warren started waiting tables.

She grew up in Oklahoma, where I myself was raised, so I can tell you that it is the Cinderella of States. My personal favorite. At night, the stars croon down over you like they are checking on their infant in its crib and you are that infant. Much like Iowans, people from Oklahoma tend to be kind, and patient, and wild like Americans ought to be.

*

When Warren was growing up, Oklahoma was a Blue State. Her family wasn't Republican. And, these days, Warren is considered a progressive.

But her worldview has evolved over the past few decades.

Photo by Sean Ryan

As a girl, she had seen the effects of bankruptcy firsthand. But her early conclusions led her to personal responsibility. After all, she had taken a job at 13 to help pay her dad's medical bills.

One of Warren's former students, told reporters that, "What changed [Warren's ideology] was the stories of ordinary people filing for bankruptcy. That speaks really well of her that she was presented with information contrary to her worldview and adopted it."
Before that, she leaned right, politically. Or, in the words of one of her best friends growing up, "Liz was a diehard conservative in those days."

Another friend called her an "ice-cold Republican."

A colleague at the University of Texas in Austin, where she worked in the early 1980s, said that "Liz was sometimes surprisingly anti-consumer in her attitude."

Another colleague said "I remember the first time I became aware of her as a political person and heard her speak, I almost fell off my chair. She's definitely changed. It's absolutely clear that something happened."

Until 1996, when she was 47 years old, Warren was a registered Republican.

And I do not mean this in a snarky way. Opposite. It's admirable when people undergo personal change. We have to. It's a matter of survival. A person who never evolves is blinded by hubris and destined to fail.

Longtime Warren collaborator Jay Westbrook has told reporters, "It drives me crazy when she's described as a radical left-winger.

She moved from being moderately conservative to being moderately liberal. When you look at consumer debt and what happens to consumers in America, you begin to think the capitalist machine is out of line."

At some point she got pregnant for the first time, setting in motion a series of events that may have involved discrimination, or may have been a fabrication she has since used in stump speeches as a heart-tugging anecdote.

As far as controversies go, it's as goofy and PG-rated as her onstage persona.

Who cares if she lied for the sake of a story and the benefit of victimhood? Trump lies constantly. Politicians lie constantly. It's part of the reason public trust in government has sunk lower than ever before.

No, it's not morally acceptable that politicians are habitually dishonest. But the outrage aimed at Warren isn't actually about that, is it?

*

Warren won state debate champion in high school. Shortly after graduating, at 19, she married Jim Warren, a mathematician who worked for IBM, then NASA.

The two dated when Elizabeth was 13 and Jim was 17. Warren chose marriage over a full-ride to the prestigious George Washington University.

Three years later, she gave birth to her first daughter. You can find the picture of her in the hospital bed, surrounded by white sheets, her eyes an oceanic blue, glowing as she holds her baby for the first time, a technicolor sash around her left shoulder.

She focused on being a mom for two years, then put herself through law school at Rutgers. At her graduation, she was eight months pregnant. Most airlines won't allow women so close to their due date.

After ten years of marriage and two children, her husband divorced her.

Warren hadn't expected it. One night, she asked her husband, "Do you want a divorce" and he said yes, even though she'd been asking in that, "Something's wrong but surely things aren't so bad" kind of way.

Imagine the enormity and disbelief she must have felt as her husband said he'd be leaving her. The kind of moment that gives a person vertigo.

Warren tried to revive the marriage, but her husband had given up. Before long he moved out, quit smoking, got super into dancing, then remarried.

Politicians tend to mention tragedies only as evidence for a policy stance. Or occasionally these stories will appear in a candidate profile. Or you can read the ice-cold Encyclopedia version.

I always wonder about the desperation people suffered in those moments that must have seemed so long, the quiet after bitter words or desperate outbursts. The enormity they must have felt.

In moments of trauma, we become intensely aware of the noises and smells and colors and momentos around us. What was the first object Warren noticed after hearing her husband say, "Yes"?

She has since said that she and Jim never really fought. That she didn't blame him for leaving. But that they just didn't work out. "I can't imagine anybody putting up with me over long periods. It's why I can never be cranky about Jim. I get it."

Still, a marriage has to be fairly bad for a couple with young children to divorce. But even an amicable divorce is devastating. It marks the death of a love that had once been good enough and deep enough for two people to bind themselves together, if only by law.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Now, Warren was a single mother. Surely, at times, that was lonesome. She must have felt moments of intense waywardness.

There must have been anxious nights, lonely mornings, swarming with memories about life as it was, all those plans for the future that must feel so naive in hindsight.

Warren's quirkiness has made her an easy piñata for her rivals.

But I just think about her, alone in a room, folding clothes or staring off, blinking and slouching there alone, and I feel disgust for politics as a bloodsport.

What do rancor or invective get us in the end? A winner who trounced a loser? What is the human cost? Not just for the people being targeted, but for the world as we'd like it.

Why isn't it enough to disagree with an opponent? Why does there have to be humiliation?

And if it's wrong from one politician, it's wrong from them all.

A person can't decry the abuse that President Trump faces — which is daunting in intensity and volume — then cheer him on when he's doing the same exact thing.

Somebody is going to have to take a slap or two to the face and not react, but it would accomplish far more than a vitriolic comeback.

At this point, three years into Trump's Presidency, there was no way to tell who started it and who was just reacting, so everyone involved in the fight was guilty.

In other words, people could no longer blame Trump for how the selfsame persona they had taken in response.

To quote Morrisey, "It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate. It takes strength to be gentle and kind."

When the ram charges straight for you, all you have to do is take a step to the left or the right and off the angry bastard goes, headfirst into the ground. Do that a few times and you'll get more support than you might expect.

Which, I'm not saying to never fight. Conflict is healthy. Passivism can be worse than violence. To fight is to live honorably. But only if justice is the reason for fighting.

If the ram is coming at you because it wants to silence or control you, grit your teeth, chalk up your horns, lower your head, and go to battle. Courage and morality are vastly different than bravado and self-righteousness.

As Tolstoy wrote in his novel War and Peace, "If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war."

*

Two years later, Warren married Bruce Mann, a law professor. They've been married ever since.

For nearly three decades, she taught law, mostly at Harvard.

Then, she shifted to politics. In 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid appointed her to a congressional panel. Two years later, she became a special advisor to Barack Obama, who had selected her as special adviser to the Treasury secretary, but stopped short of nominating her as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Shortly after, she resigned. A month later, she announced her Congressional bid, which gained momentum after her speech at that year's Democratic National Convention.

In 2013, she was elected senior Senator of Massachusetts after beating Republican incumbent Scott Brown with 53 percent of the vote. She would go on to win a second term in 2018, this time with 60 percent.

Every candidate has a stain. Warren's happens to have led to mockery. For years, she claimed Native American heritage. For many of the right, it was yet another example of the left's allegiance to identity politics.

The left was more concerned with the way the issue come to attention to begin with, after remarks President Trump made during an event honoring Navajo code talkers. As has become the norm, many of the country's leading news outlets ran scathing anti-Trump op-eds that they labeled as hard news.

In other words, opinion was being packaged as fact. In other words, propaganda. Like the passive-aggressive tone of this Washington Post article.

Which is certainly not the right way to handle injustice. And is certainly not journalistically sound.

Once again, the media's blatant disdain of Trump only served to further empower him. Gave him more proof of fake news. And allowed him to justify, in the eyes of his followers, the repeated use of the Warren's nickname.

Worst of all, it widened the distance between the news media and the portion of the American public they'd long ago lost access to.

Likewise, conservative news outlets pounced with an air of, "See? I knew it all along?"

And responded with a different version of the same aggression used by the media. Outlets like FoxNews played up their masterful victim narrative, the idea that the mainstream media has a stranglehold on America, despite the fact that FoxNews has long been the dominant news source of the mainstream media they claim to be a victim of.

Photo by Sean Ryan

This feedback loop played out until Elizabeth Warren's genetics became a national conversation.

Last year Warren released a DNA test that revealed sher to be only between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native America. Fellow democratic candidate Corey Booker — a Senator from New Jersey — has more Native American DNA than Warren. And, unfortunately for Warren, the nickname that President Trump gave her gained more power.

During an interview on MSNBC, Warren said, "It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur. Donald Trump does this over and over thinking somehow he is going to shut me up with it. It hasn't worked in the past, it isn't going to work out in the future."

In a bizarre twist, Warren's ex-husband was a pioneer in the field of genetics and helped make the technology accessible to the public when he co-founded FamilyTreeDNA, which sells genetic testing kits.

*

Across the street from the Surf Ballroom, 300 yards from the entrance, a Trump 2020 sign the size of a front door glared out, impossible to avoid.

Photo by Sean Ryan

It's a power play in line with Trump's own combat style — which, again, there's nothing wrong with a good fight, even if there is some dirty fighting, but why did it have to be all of the time? And why had everyone joined in on it?

*

Warren began her presidential campaign on Febraury 8, 2019, with a rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts, at the site of the 1912 Bread and Roses textile strike, a two-month-long standoff that led to 296 arrests.

Three people died, an Italian immigrant, who was shot in the chest. A Lithuanian immigrant who was beaten to death for wearing a pro-labor lapel pin. And a Syrian boy who was bayoneted in the spine.

The strike takes its name from a James Oppenheim poem.

"As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,For they are women's children, and we mother them again."

*

As Warren drove her speech to a close, Kamala Harris paced down the long ramp by the side of the stage, then walked through a curtain that divided the hallway from backstage, then into the crowded ballroom, immediately surrounded by cameras, lights, hands, selfies.

Ten feet behind the curtain, Joe Biden shifted at the side of the stage, chatting with several people in brand-new Biden 2020 shirts, and waiting to go on.

Photo by Sean Ryan

Each candidate had 10 minutes or so, which Biden, like most of the other candidates, would use to insult Trump and fumbled through his "President's words matter" speech, two days after his "poor kids are just as talented as white kids" comment, and I wondered if everyone else found the irony as hilarious as I did.

Now Warren was pounding her fist.

The already hysterical crowd became even more incensed with each of her words. It was the first moment I realized that Warren actually had a shot at winning the nomination.

*

Of all the towns we visited while in Iowa, Clear Lake was the most puzzling. It didn't feel like the rest of what we'd seen. It didn't resemble any other town in the country, far as I can say. Just a general ideal for "lovely American town."

Maybe Clint Eastwood's Carmel, California, or the wealthy part of Charlotte, North Carolina, or the gorgeous shaded Rice Village neighborhood of Houston, Texas.

Warren shuffled offstage and shook hands with Biden.

Then cue the Bruce Springsteen song. And somebody hurry up and push the button that activates Biden's facelift.

"The words that Presidents speak matter," said Biden. And some of the crowd were hearing him say it for the first time.

Warren gabbed with a lady in a floral dress backstage. They held hands like sisters. After a minute or so, she vanished backstage. Then the whole gig was finished. Closing time had come.

Andrew Yang hung out in the lobby after all the other candidates left. He took selfies. Talked policy. Behind him, young people in Yang 2020 shirts and hats that said "MATH" handed out Yang money.

He hugged. He laughed.

People puttered out of the Surf Ballroom in no sort of hurry, giddy in their candidate t-shirts, ready to effect change, to dethrone Trump.

The air had a gentle sway, tilted by a northern cold that felt winter-like, especially for August.

Right as the last big group of Wing Dingers walked out of the Surf Ballroom, a small car drove by, windows down, packed with young men who kept shouting, "Vote for Trump, baby!"

Then, stalled at a stop sign, the driver revved the engine and spun the tires, and as it sped off, one of the guys in the back seat shouted "Trump 2020, bitches."

New installments of this series on the 2020 elections come out every Monday and Thursday. Check out my Twitter. Email me at kryan@mercurystudios.com

Was this the most PATRIOTIC Super Bowl yet?

CHANDAN KHANNA / Contributor | Getty Images

The 2025 Super Bowl demonstrated Trump’s vision of a new America.

On Sunday, February 9th, the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the biggest sporting event of the year. But this wasn't just a victory for Eagles fans. For those watching, it became apparent that American culture has changed, the zeitgeist has shifted, and America has become cool again. While remnants of woke culture lingered, they felt out of step next to the parade of American Flags and patriotic messaging that dominated the national event. The message was clear: America is back.

Everybody knows that the commercials are the best part of any Super Bowl, and last night's game was no exception. As Glenn has pointed out, while some of the ads still carried woke messages (like Nike's), many more captured the newly kindled patriotism felt nationwide. Here are four of the best commercials from last Sunday that make this the most patriotic Super Bowl yet:

1. Rocket: "Own the Dream"

This touching commercial by the financial services company, Rocket, states "Everyone deserves a shot at the American dream," while showing images of people returning home and building families. The ad included a cover of John Denver's iconic song "Take Me Home, Country Roads" and featured an in-stadium sing-along, live from the Super Bowl.

2. Secret Service: "A History of Protection"

Donald Trump made history by being the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, which required the efforts of hundreds of Secret Service agents to ensure his safety. The Secret Service boasted of this feat during their minute-long commercial, which lauded American values and achievements and featured iconic American imagery.

3. Brad Pitt: "Huddle Up"

The Super Bowl introduction celebrated snapshots of American achievement accompanied with a powerful commentary about unity narrated by Brad Pitt. The message is clear: Americans can achieve great things when we work together. The ad conjures up American ideals such as hard work, ingenuity, self-sacrifice, and teamwork.

4. Jeep: "Big Game"

Movie star Harrison Ford appeared in Jeep's Super Bowl commercial to promote freedom and to remind us that "freedom isn't free." Ford treks through the mountains while ruminating on what freedom means in America and the opportunities and responsibilities that come with it.

How Trump is WINNING at the Panama Canal

MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / Contributor | Getty Images

Despite the doubts of the nay-sayers, Trump's Panamanian plans have already borne fruit.

Shortly before his inauguration, President Trump drew national attention to the Panama Canal. He reminded Americans of just how important the canal is for the U.S. and highlighted the Chinese influence that has been slowly taking control of the vital passage ever since America handed it over to Panama.

President Trump was immediately mocked and ridiculed by the Left, who called him delusional and an imperialist. However, earlier this week, Trump's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, made a trip to Panama and spoke with the Panamanian President, José Raúl Mulino, and Rubio made some serious headway. As Glenn has explained, Trump's boisterous talk is part of his strategy. Invading Panama was never the goal, just one of several options to get what America needed, and after Rubio's visit, it seems like America's needs will be met.

Here are the TOP THREE takeaways from Marco Rubio's visit to Panama:

1. Marco Rubio makes headway

MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / Contributor | Getty Images

On February 2nd, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Panamanian Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha and President José Raúl Mulino where they discussed critical regional and global challenges, including the canal. Rubio drew attention to the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal in which the U.S. promised Panama ownership of the canal on the condition of its guaranteed neutrality. Rubio argued that China's growing influence qualified as a breach of the treaty and that it gives the U.S. the power to take necessary measures to rectify the faults, given Panama doesn't act. As of this week, reports say Panama agreed and promised to take immediate action to purge Chinese influence from canal operations.

2. Panama is ditching China's Belt Road

MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / Contributor | Getty Images

After his meeting with Rubio, Panamanian President Mulino agreed that Panama would step away from China's "Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI). The BRI is a Chinese effort to establish China as the main economic power in developing nations across the world. In 2017, Panama signed on to this initiative, and China's influence in the small nation has exponentially grown. However, after Rubio's visit, President Mulino has not only stated that Panama will not renew its agreement with China, but moreover, the country will also look for ways to back out of the agreement early. This is a massive win for the Trump Administration and the American people.

3. The Chinese may lose their ports on the canal

MARTIN BERNETTI / Contributor | Getty Images

Shortly after Rubio left Panama City, two lawyers spearheaded the effort to kick out a Chinese company that controls two major ports on the Panama Canal. The Chinese company—CK Hutchison Holdings—has operated one port on both ends of the canal since 1997, which could potentially give China a massive degree of control over traffic. After analyzing the contract, the Panamanian lawyers argue that the contract is potentially in violation of the Panamanian constitution and should be revoked. It is unclear if the constitutional issues relate to the Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal, but even on its own merit, this is a huge victory for America.

Top 15 jobs AI is TAKING OVER

CFOTO / Contributor, VCG / Contributor | Getty Images

The AI takeover has begun.

Last week, Glenn delved into the World Economic Forum's 2025 summit in Davos, where our malevolent overlords focused especially on AI and how it can replace millions of workers worldwide. We are at the precipice of a monumental change in how the world is run—WEF founder Klaus Schwab called it "The Fourth Industrial Revolution"—and in time, AI will augment every one of our lives.

Already, AI is taking jobs. Thousands, if not millions, of tasks are slowly being delegated to it. The affected fields are largely data entry, admin tasks, and clerical work, along with graphic design and some customer support roles. However, as AI becomes more sophisticated, the scope of its abilities will only grow. The WEF is all for it, and last month they released a shocking chart

that revealed what jobs were already feeling the pain. Check out the top 15 jobs that are already disappearing:

1. Postal service clerks

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

2. Bank tellers

JOHANNES EISELE / Staff | Getty Images

3. Data entry clerks

AFP / Staff | Getty Images

4. Cashiers and ticket clerks

Andreas Rentz / Staff | Getty Images

5. Administrative assistants and executive secretaries

6. Printing workers

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

7. Accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll clerks

8. Material-recording and stock-keeping clerks

9. Transportation attendants and conductors

10. Door-to-door salesmen

11. Graphic designers

12. Claims adjusters, examiners and investigators

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

13. Legal officials

14. Legal secretaries

15. Telemarketers

Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images

3 stories that prove USAID is a criminal organization

Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Images

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has one mission—to eliminate government waste—and it's starting with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID is a federal agency that, on paper, is responsible for distributing foreign aid to conflict-ridden zones across the world. However, for years, Glenn has revealed that the USAID acts more like a second CIA, but without the regulation or oversight under the State Department. Elon Musk concurred, describing the federal agency as not merely "an apple with a worm in it" but rather "just a ball of worms."

Don't fall for the left's narrative calling USAID a "humanitarian" organization. Here are the top three stories that reveal just how corrupt the USAID really is:

1. USAID has funded terrorist organizations and Osama bin Laden

Ahmad Khateib / Stringer | Getty Images

In 2023, USAID provided "assistance" to nearly 130 countries, including Ukraine, Ethiopia, Jordan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Yemen, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Syria (which is currently run by a terrorist that received aid from the Obama-era CIA). Under Obama, USAID gave funds to an organization known as the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), which was known at the time to help finance Jihadist groups and had been labeled by the U.S. Treasury Department as a "terror-financing organization."

The ISRA also funded and gave shelter to the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden—U.S. taxpayer dollars sent straight to the perpetrator of the deadliest terrorist attack in history and the most lethal attack on U.S. soil.

2. USAID "loses" funds that happen to end up in individuals' pockets

MANDEL NGAN / Contributor | Getty Images

A recent investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) revealed that in 2016, Chemonics International colluded with a USAID subcontractor to massively overcharge a USAID project to pocket extra funds from the project's bottom line. Moreover, the USAID project used "self-reported" performance metrics, which made it impossible to verify the actual progress of the project and how the funds were being used.

Even the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic has USAID's sticky fingerprints all over it. In 2014, USAID provided $38 million to an EcoHealth Alliance project called "Predict-2." One of the subcontractors, Ben Hu, headed the Wuhan Institute of Virology's gain-of-function research and was one of the first three people infected with COVID-19 in late 2019. That means U.S. taxpayer dollars were likely used to fund the very research that gave rise to the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. USAID operates as a second "CIA" with no accountability

Andrew Burton / Staff | Getty Images

The CIA isn't the only agency that meddles in the political inner workings of foreign powers. USAID has conducted similar operations since the 1950s. USAID notoriously sowed dissent in Cuba to grow U.S. influence, and they even taught South American police forces Nazi torture methods. In the late 1990s, 300,000 Peruvian women were forcibly sterilized in a "poverty reduction strategy" that received $35 million in funding from USAID.

More recently, USAID's foreign influence has grown significantly under former Obama adviser, Samantha Power, called USAID America's "soft power arsenal." Under her leadership, the organization meddled in the political affairs of several nations, including Ukraine, Ethiopia, and, Bolivia. Several domestic, left-leaning influence groups, such as the Tides Center, received several grants and aid.