Going to War With the Senate Over Taliban Funding

This escalated quickly.

I’m not sure if you all remember hearing the phrase, something like ‘$40M a week is still going to the Taliban.’ Sounds incredible, right? Like, how could that possibly be?

Well, it turns out to be entirely possible and partially true, and it all blew up this week with a report of a shipment of $45M in cold hard American greenbacks that was rumored to have been flown out to the murderous goatherders running Afghanistan.

The information everyone was seeing indicated it was funds the U.S. government was sending, much like the fabled ‘pallets of cash’ of old.

Naturally, everyone righteously lost their collective minds reading headlines like these.

 Trump Admin Sending Taliban $45M Sparks Republican Backlash

Republicans are calling out the Trump administration after $45 million was reportedly sent to the Taliban in Afghanistan by the Department of State on Monday.

Among those reacting to the reports was Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett, who has introduced a bill aimed at stopping tax dollars from being given to the group that regained control of Afghanistan in 2021.

“Every week,” Burchett posted on X in response to the reporting. “Pass my Bill Senate!”

Newsweek reached out to the State Department via its contact form and Burchett via email for comment on Tuesday morning.

What apparently has been happening since Biden’s disastrous withdrawal is that there has been a continuous flow of taxpayer dollars into Afghanistan, which, in theory, has been meant for humanitarian support to be administered by approved non-governmental organizations (NGO). In practice, it goes straight into government accounts, many of which are controlled by the Taliban, and every NGO operating in the country contracts with the Taliban.

A 2024 ProPublica report detailed how it works.

The United Nations has delivered more than $2.9 billion in cash to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control, resulting in the flow of U.S. funds to the extremist group, according to a recent government report.

The U.N. deposits the cash into a private Afghan bank and disburses funds to the agency’s aid organizations and nonprofit humanitarian groups. But the money does not stop there, the report found. Some winds up at the central bank of Afghanistan, which is under the control of the Taliban. The group took over the country after the withdrawal of U.S. forces in August 2021.

The report, from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, provides the first detailed account of how U.S. cash falls under the control of the Taliban and adds to a growing body of evidence that contributions to the U.N. are not always reaching Afghans in need. It did not specify how much U.S. funding has been channeled to the central bank.

“Most of the money that’s going in cash through the U.N. is ultimately coming from U.S. taxpayers,” John Sopko, the inspector general, said in an interview. “It’s going to a terrorist group. The Taliban are a bunch of terrorists.”

U.N. officials do not deny that the cash delivered to Afghanistan makes its way to the central bank. But they say there is no avoiding it since the Taliban control the country.

In the Trump administration, though, there is no tolerance for either the Taliban or NGOs, and the pressure has been on to cut the funding off at the knees for this river of lucre flowing to the savages in Kabul.

What has happened previously is that Representative Tim Burchett managed to finally pass his bill out of the House, which would cease the payments. The problem is that it has since been sitting in the Senate, where it has to meet a 60-vote threshold. 

Democrats are very fond of their NGOs, as we all know too well and yesterday they proved it again.

Burchett’s legislation came up for a vote in the Senate, and the Democrat senator from Vermont, Peter Welch, drove a knife through the heart of the Defund the Taliban bill.

‘…But it’s overly broad. It means that NGOs that are doing work that we support…can’t be done…’

FOR THE WOMEN, CHILDREN AND NGOS

The NGOs are licensed by the Taliban. Their employees are vetted by the Taliban’s intelligence. The billions of US dollars they receive are converted into Afghanis by the Taliban’s central bank, which sets rates and takes cuts. The NGOs purchase goods and services from a list of… pic.twitter.com/rqA3dptwqI

— Legend (@realLegendAfg) December 11, 2025

…The NGOs purchase goods and services from a list of pre-approved Taliban vendors. Areas with Taliban supporters receive multiple rounds of aid, while the majority of anti-Taliban constituencies get little to none.

The Taliban continue to spend Afghanistan’s $3B+ annual national revenue from taxation and the illegal sales of extractive industries on their terrorists, who wake up daily celebrating that they defeated America and who remain pledged to the same enemy that attacked on 9/11.

Why do you feel obligated to pay for the civilian sector for the Taliban with US taxpayer money?

Even US flags are banned from aid packages. The Taliban district commanders distribute aid in the name of Mullah Haibatullah, not in the name of the generosity of the U.S. Senate.

I urge you to reconsider your position, sir, @SenPeterWelch. The Taliban should not get a penny. They are a terrorist group. They treat Afghan women like cattle. They teach Afghan children to wage jihad.

What a pathetic simp.

@SenPeterWelch can you please explain to the American people why you voted to continue to send US money to the Taliban? Do you have such little regards for us and our taxes?

— GlamHippie (@foodietravler) December 11, 2025

When news of this latest pile of money transfer exploded yesterday, not to mention being foiled in the Senate, Burchett went ballistic online. 

‘Again!’ he said.’Every daggum week.’

Then he laid out where they were in the process and exactly who they believed was the fly in the ointment.

🚨 BREAKING: Rep. Tim Burchett exposes that his bill banning taxpayer dollars from going to the Taliban is being BLOCKED because of a Senate staffer who had his security clearance DENIED by DNI Tulsi Gabbard due to his relationship with the Taliban.

WOW.

“We can’t get the bill… pic.twitter.com/VrBHoxOGmn

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 10, 2025

…And we got a fellow over in the Senate who was a staffer, but he was a former, I believe, ambassador to Afghanistan. And his name is what? Tom West.”

“And apparently, our good friend Tulsi Gabbard and the Trump administration denied him his security clearance because of his alleged cozy relationship with the Taliban.”

“And so I suspect that’s what’s going on in the Senate. That’s why they’re stopping the bill.”

“And people say, well, y’all are in the majority. Why don’t you just act like it? Well, you got to have 60 votes over there to pass a bill of this significance. And that’s the holdup.”

“And we’re going to continue to see this kind of nonsense until the country wakes up. And I don’t care what party you’re in. We shouldn’t be paying these people any money!”

“They will hate us for free. All they’re going to do is use that money to come at us in a different area and kill Americans and kill our allies. Dadgum it!”

“This is what’s going on. I’m letting you know about it. You can make the call. Call your senator – if you’ve got a Democrat senator, this is beyond that. This is actual, in my opinion, corruption.”

“We know this money flows around. We know @ElonMusk told us about it flowing into dark money campaigns. And I think some of this money, I’m not sure if this is or some of the other, but surely it’s flowing back into the pockets of politicians in Washington.”

“And if it’s a Republican, I hope they haul them out of here in chains. And a Democrat as well, because I don’t care. I’m sick of it.”

“We’re $38 trillion in debt. We’re sending over $40 million a week to the Taliban. And the United States Congress doesn’t have the guts to stop it. That’s pathetic. Let’s fix it.”

THEY CAN HATE US FOR FREE

Who is this ‘Tom West’ that Burchett refers to?

I really don’t know much about him, but, judging by past performances, he sure loves him some mullah.

Who is Tom West? pic.twitter.com/OCkDWyVyS3

— Legend (@realLegendAfg) December 10, 2025

Here is West’s official Dept of State bio. This litany of Tom West’s sins, if any of it is true, is truly incendiary.

Let me tell you about Tom West, the Taliban-friendly Democratic Senate staffer who is blocking the No Tax Dollars For Terrorists Act!@realLegendAfg pic.twitter.com/1g9ognQAOS

— Jazz Cannon (@Jazz_Cannon) December 10, 2025

Tom West aside, GOP House members took matters into their own hands, arranging for a meeting with Secretary of State Rubio.

Our Secretary of State is incredible. He talked to us on the phone and told us he is cutting off all funding of US tax dollars to Taliban. We will be providing him with the vehicle in which that is happening!

— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) December 10, 2025

They got guarantees that any NGOs funneling money to the Taliban would be officially cut off from funding, and the State Dept. was going to work with the House on restricting what funding they could without having to wait for the Senate.

.@RepLuna: “We talked to the Secretary of State directly and got guarantees that any NGOs that are funneling American tax dollars to the Taliban are officially going to be cut off.”

🎥: @cadenolson_ pic.twitter.com/vhKq5UMf9X

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) December 10, 2025

Burchett, who joins Luna on the steps for that interview, says Rubio was ‘very kind’ and that he agreed to ‘work with me on making sure that all the funding for the Taliban was cut off. Not just the peripheral stuff but the NGOs and others, completely cut off…’

In the House yesterday, Burchett introduced an amendment that prohibited taxpayer dollars from being given to the Taliban, and, as Luna explains, they refused to add it to the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) when it was voted on.

So, for the moment, it looks stalled, thanks to the power of the NGO scam over Democrats in Congress. But you can bet Rubio has his NGO-busters working on a way to choke off the money stream in the interim.

As for the mysterious Tom West, I imagine that fellow’s going to find himself the subject of some intense scrutiny he probably never expected but has long deserved. Hopefully whoever he’s working for gets the once and twice over, too.

‘These NGOs,’ Burchett says, ‘Are crooked as a dog’s leg.’

If only they were the only ones.

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