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Rory Stewart’s wife’s charity has had $1m in USAID funding stopped days after his bizarre clash with JD Vance, the former minister and podcaster has said.
Donald Trump has frozen billions of dollars of overseas aid from the US, as he takes aim at the steps to close the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), arguing that its spending is “totally unexplainable”.
Mr Stewart said his wife’s charity Turquoise Mountain, which helps communities in Afghanistan and other countries, has had $1million halted.
He told his fellow podcast presenter, former New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, “Turquoise Mountain, which my wife runs, had a contract (and) had another million dollars to go and the money just stops”.
Earlier this month the new US vice president JD Vance took aim at the Rest is Politics presenter accused the former British politician of believing he has an IQ of 130 “when it is really 110”.
Less than a fortnight into his new job in the White House, he added: “This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.”
In response, Mr Stewart sarcastically praised Mr Vance’s ability “to measure other’s IQ so instantly and confidently”.
He also accused him of insulting his voters, tweeting: “I hope your big genius is not making you patronising towards people with an IQ of 110 – since that is 75 per cent of the US population. And perhaps even 1 or 2 of your voters”.
The exchange began after Mr Vance had claimed: “There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world.”
Mr Stewart responded on X, describing the comments as a “bizarre take” on the bible.
He added that it was “less Christian and more pagan tribal. We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love…”
It is not the first time that Mr Trump and his allies have hit out at British politicians in recent months.
Elon Musk has described Reform as the UK’s “only hope” as he stepped up his public support for Nigel Farage’s party and urged Britons to vote for it.
The tycoon and close ally of Donald Trump is at the centre of rumours he is preparing to give the party up to $100m.
He has also had a long running feud with Keir Starmer, earlier this year claiming that “very few” businesses want to invest in Britain under Labour. Sir Keir previously clashed with Mr Musk last August when the billionaire claimed in a post on the X platform he owns that “civil war” was “inevitable” in Britain.
