Actor Ben Stiller, Good Will Ambassador for the UN High Commission for Refugees, testified before … [+]
Actor and comedian Ben Stiller fired back at accusations on Thursday that he was paid millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky as part of a publicity stunt in 2022. The actor, who did visit the war-torn country shortly after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion, refuted claims that the travel was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Stiller was one of several celebrities who appeared in a video, which bore a false E News watermark, alleging that USAID paid them to the travel to Ukraine. The faux news story, widely shared across social media, also claimed Angelina Jolie, Sean Penn, Jean Claude Van Dam and Orlando Bloom were paid millions of dollars to boost Zelensky’s popularity.
“These are lies coming from Russian media. I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no payment of any kind. [100] percent false,” Stiller (@BenStiller) wrote in response on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Though readers on X have since added the context that the “Video has been fabricated to appear as though it came from ENews but there is no evidence that ENews ever reported this,” the faux footage has been reshared and viewed millions of times. As Vanity Fair reported, among those who shared the video were Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., and Sidney Powell, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer.
Another Disinformation Campaign On Social Media
As with past disinformation campaigns seen on social media, there is a grain of truth in the video. Stiller made the aforementioned trip to Ukraine in June 2022, serving as a Goodwill Ambassador to mark World Refugee Day, while Jolie, Penn, Van Damme, and Bloom all made trips to Ukraine and/or met with Zelensky.
There is no evidence USAID or any other U.S. group paid the celebrities.
The timing of the video’s release is also notable as it came just days after the Trump administration announced plans to significantly overhaul the government agency that provides international civilian aid.
“This has taken the general approach with conspiracy theories,” said Dr. Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University.
Ariely explained that the dubious claims come as USAID is in the news, and has been criticized by the new administration – as well as Musk – for being wasteful in its spending.
“The basis is that the government is doing things you might not like,” added Ariely. “Creating this story was designed to make people upset.”
From Russia With Love?
The origin of the video isn’t known, but it follows past claims that high-ranking Ukrainian military personnel saw their L.A. homes destroyed in last month’s tragic wildfires, that President Zelensky bought Adolf Hitler’s car, and that Mrs. Zelensky wife engaged in extravagant spending sprees.
“It is a false rumor and is silly to suggest the trips were paid by USAID,” said Dr. Matthew Schmidt, professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven.
“Ben Stiller has reputed it publicly, and you can check this on USAspending.gov to see that no government money was paid to fund the trips. So it’s out there,” added Schmidt.
As for the origin of the video and its claims, Schmidt also suggested it has Russian fingerprints all over it.
“Russia puts this disinformation out there because, at this point, it undermines the credibility of the United States government, but also plays to President Donald Trump’s narrative about the kinds of things that USAID money was spent on instead of noting the truth,” warned Schmidt.
The reality is that the majority of USAID money goes to help those in need, and that includes refugees in war-torn countries. The money spent is also a small fraction of the overall federal budget.
USAID And National Security
Though Musk has described USAID as a “criminal organization,” and other critics of it have called out its “wasteful spending,” the fact remains that it serves an important role in national security.
As NBC News reported, USAID was “Established by then-President John F. Kennedy in 1961 as an independent agency,” and “the goal of USAID was two-pronged: to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War and to run various foreign assistance programs, based on the idea that American security was tied to stability and economic advancements in other nations.”
While USAID may seem to run counter to the America First mantra, it actually supports it, said Schmidt.
“USAID’s efforts provide regional security, and support our own national security, because these otherwise unstable situations eventually blossom into geopolitical crises,” Schmidt explained.
It would therefore make sense that foreign actors in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing and elsewhere might take to social media to stir up resentment aimed at USAID.
“This is the pattern of Russian disinformation warfare going back to Trump’s first administration and even earlier,” warned Schmidt. “These kinds of efforts support the Russian narrative that Ukraine is full of corrupt officials, supported by corrupt USAID officials, corrupt celebrities like Ben Stiller, and so on. It parallels their other propaganda efforts.”
