Fact Check: Did Chuck Schumer seek $4M for LGBTQ+ programs to reopen the government?

WASHINGTON, DC: When the US government officially shut its doors on October 1, it wasn’t exactly shocking since Congress couldn't pass the federal budget.

Now, a month down the line, social media is rife with claims that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was holding the government hostage for a $4 million payday supposedly for LGBTQ+ awareness campaigns around the world.

The alleged demand apparently came up during an October 28 press conference held by Speaker Mike Johnson, who was asked about Democrats’ funding requests. “We’re not doing that," he reportedly said.

Posts and memes soon followed, accusing Schumer of making the $4 million demand as part of a wish list to reopen the government.

Fact Check: False

Fact-checker Snopes received several emails and decided to probe the claim. However, they found zero proof that Schumer demanded $4 million for LGBTQ+ awareness programs in exchange for ending the shutdown.

In fact, the social media posts pinning it specifically on Schumer were playing fast and loose with the facts. Johnson never named Schumer. The Speaker’s actual comments blamed “the Democratic Party” broadly, not the Senate leader himself.

Johnson’s jab wasn’t exactly out of nowhere. In July, House Republicans passed a bill slashing more than $9 billion from two big-ticket government players. These were the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which handles foreign aid, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the outfit behind NPR and PBS.

Then, in August, President Donald Trump upped the ante with what Politico dubbed an unprecedented “pocket rescission.” He quietly canceled another $5 billion in funds that had already been approved.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, those funds would have expired by the end of the fiscal year anyway, but Trump’s move meant they were effectively wiped out without needing a single vote from Congress.

The rescission process lets the White House put a 45-day hold on spending while lawmakers weigh in. But since those funds were already on the brink of expiration, the White House didn’t have to wait around for congressional approval.

When the White House released a breakdown of the axed funding on August 29, one of the items listed was that infamous $4 million grant. It would be the same grant Johnson later accused Democrats of wanting back.

Real story behind that $4 million

During his October 28 press conference, Johnson claimed that Democrats were “demanding … some really crazy things” as part of their negotiations to reopen the government.

These demands reportedly included the reinstatement of billions in foreign aid, $500 million for “left-leaning news organizations,” and the alleged $4 million earmarked for global LGBTQ+ awareness campaigns.

Those claims linked back to the earlier funding cuts, including the July rescission from Congress and Trump’s late-August pocket veto. According to Johnson, Democrats were supposedly begging to “send money to foreign countries” instead of cutting back.

Snopes tracked down that very same $4 million grant on the government’s own spending database, USASpending.gov. Turns out, USAID had actually issued the grant two years earlier, in 2022, to a group called Outright International.

The program was dubbed “The Alliance for Global Equality” and aimed to “advance the human rights and social inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people in priority countries around the world.”

There’s no evidence that the grant was rescinded in either July or August.