CIA ‘Declared War’ on Populist Movements, House Republicans Aren’t Helping: Mike Benz [WATCH]

Former State Department official Mike Benz said Tuesday that the CIA and other U.S. foreign policy institutions increasingly view populist movements around the world as a “global menace,” citing their rise as a major concern among intelligence and diplomatic entities following the Cold War.

During an appearance on Bannon’s War Room, Benz criticized the continued funding of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a U.S. government-funded organization originally established to support pro-democracy initiatives abroad. Benz pointed to its role in targeting populist political movements and claimed the organization has strayed from its stated mission.

“War found a new global menace, which was the global rise of populist parties,” Benz said. “From Trump in the U.S. to Nigel Farage in the Brexit and Reform Party movements in the U.K. to Maureen Le Pen in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy and Bolsonaro in Brazil. They faced this kind of unofficial, undeclared Second Cold War in the form of populism.”

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According to Benz, institutions like the NED redirected their focus following the collapse of the Soviet Union, shifting from countering communism to opposing the populist right.

He argued that these foreign policy tools now function as mechanisms to suppress grassroots political movements that challenge the global liberal order.

“The National Endowment for Democracy descended like a pack of vultures to try to essentially harvest, kill, and then eat the corpse of every little populist movement it could,” Benz said.

He added that current congressional funding debates reflect a divide within the Republican Party between traditional foreign policy hawks and more nationalist factions.

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While the Trump administration moved to eliminate funding for the NED, recommending its defunding through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), House Republicans are now considering allocating hundreds of millions in continued taxpayer support.

Benz attributed this to lingering loyalty within the GOP to Cold War-era foreign policy structures.

“A lot of right-wing, a lot of corporations, Chamber of Commerce companies, they depend on the battering ram of the Pentagon, of USAID funding, of CIA and clandestine NGO services in order to create their markets, in order to secure favorable legislation or regulations in countries, in order to lock in government contracts, in order to harvest natural resources,” Benz said.

“And so you have this kind of John McCain wing. John McCain actually ran the Republican side of the National Endowment for Democracy for 25 years, who I think is not going to let go of this weapon while it serves so many of their own interests.”

Benz also pointed to recent controversies involving the NED, including its financial support of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) in 2020.

The GDI produced a list of media outlets it deemed disinformation sources, with conservative-leaning platforms like Newsmax and the New York Post featured prominently.

The list was reportedly shared with advertisers to reduce advertising revenue for those outlets, raising concerns about indirect censorship funded by U.S. taxpayers.

Critics, including OMB Director Russell Vought, have called for an end to NED funding.

The organization has cited NED’s involvement in political operations overseas, particularly in Ukraine, as contributing to increased geopolitical tensions with Russia.

Efforts by House Republicans to reconsider the future of the NED come amid a broader debate over the role of U.S. influence abroad and the use of taxpayer funds in shaping foreign political outcomes.