Thread by @alexandrosM

Whitney Webb's failure to admit error, (and how to survive the 2025+ infowars without getting blackpilled)

I had a run-in with Whitney Webb this week. This THREAD will try to walk you through the story in excruciating detail.

This will take a while, but I think it's worth it.

It all started when @BretWeinstein thanked @POTUS for withdrawing from the WHO. Bret had fought long and hard against the WHO pandemic treaty that was being pushed, so whoever had followed him knows how important this is.

https://x.com/BretWeinstein/status/1881528028087697483

@BretWeinstein @POTUS Whitney Webb felt the need to point out that "Trump also left the WHO in mid-2020 and then just redirected what was once WHO funding to the Gates-funded GAVI vaccine alliance."

https://x.com/_whitneywebb/status/1881745408923173195

The implication here is that it doesn't really matter if the US leaves the WHO, since the money is still going to the same or worse recipients.

There are a number of problems with this angle:

1. She seems to think leaving the WHO is a money-saving, not sovereighnty-saving measure. To my knowledge very few people are thinking that a saving $200m or $300m a year is the point of leaving the WHO.

2. She offers no evidence that the money that Trump prevented from going to the WHO was specifically redirected to GAVI

3. The evidence she cites, of money that was reduced to the WHO and money that went to GAVI, the basis on which her conjecture is built, are full of holes and misrepresentations.

Even though 1. and 2. are significant enough reasons to ignore her comments, this thread will focus on the third point, as well as her reaction to being shown to have made a significant error.

To support her claim, she points to certain articles. We will go through each one in turn.

https://x.com/_whitneywebb/status/1881745412090179734

The first is a piece from the Guardian, dated April 14, 2020, with Trump announcing his intention to halt funding to the WHO. The rationale was the deference the WHO showed to China in the early days of the pandemic, delaying its warning to the world.

theguardian.com/world/2020/apr…

The second is an article from WaPo, from July 7, 2020, when the withdrawal became official. archive.is/PtIjS

The third is a press release announcing that USAID would give 1.16 billion to GAVI. The press release links to a USAID tweet announcing the donation, dated June 4, 2020:

https://x.com/USAID/status/1268560844213743616

Same day, USAID posted this, with Trump announcing the commitment.

https://x.com/USAID/status/1268641907950813185

Well, that looks pretty bad. Until you realize that 1.16b for the period 2020-2023 is exactly 290 million a year for 4 years, which is the same amount the US has been giving GAVI since 2018.

I informed Webb of this by putting this post under hers. Originally I had found coarser numbers that implied the same thing, but this particular chart has official annual data, leaving no doubt.

https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1881796980000874675

This is where things got weird. Webb came after me for making this point, calling me an... Elon simp. The reason she said that will become aparent later.

https://x.com/_whitneywebb/status/1882068907701186931

She did reiterate her original claim, using two supporting facts:

"the US did increase funding to Gavi after the WHO withdrawal"

"Trump publicly praised Gavi the same month he took the US out of the WHO in 2020 and promoted the partnership with them".

Both false, see below.

First, the announcement of the funding to GAVI was in June. The withdrawal from WHO was in July. That makes it **before** not **after**.

Also, and for the same reason, Trump's praise of GAVI was the previous month than the WHO withdrawal.

But it gets worse.

To support her position, she posted a link to the same 1.16 billion announcement we reviewed above, and also to an article by @DBrozeLiveFree, which is this one: thelastamericanvagabond.com/vaccine-bait-s…

The article itself notes that the 1.16B funding was announced on February 10, 2020, months before the WHO funding halt was even mentioned anywhere.

The article links to an announcement that is now here:
2017-2020.usaid.gov/news-informati…

So, based on the sources that Webb herself provided, we know that GAVI funding was announced in February 2020, months before the WHO withdrawal was even mentioned, nevermind put into action. And based on data I found, the GAVI funding she pointed to was unchanged on an annual basis.

Need to put the thread on pause as the weekly space with @drrollergator is now. Will probably cover this there.



There's a lot more drama to discuss, the good stuff hasn't even started yet. Will continue later tonight, I hope.x.com/i/spaces/1RDxl…

This is the best restatement of Webb's point I've seen yet. Yes, if she said this, it would be a positive sign, recognizing the important progress and pointing towards next steps, not reducing the importance of the progress made.

https://x.com/TakeMeSerial/status/1883651892733157726?t=5BT6noAX2VwWov3nyheS6w&s=19

Ok, back on this thread. As I was sleeping, @_whitneywebb replied to this thread. Read her answer (the quoted post and the reply) before we continue because there's still lots to write about this saga.

https://x.com/_whitneywebb/status/1883866383437439156

@_whitneywebb After her complaining about a pile-on, I'm glad to see her followers are being very civilized about all this, and expressing their gratitude about the correction.

Just kidding:

https://x.com/DecentraliseP/status/1883869815926055019

So, before we proceed, credit where due:

She admits the error, and the fact that the "bait and switch" title created a false impression. I had previously written that this is exactly what I think happened. She even articulates an apology that she didn't pay closer attention to the data I provided.

This is a low bar, but the vast majority of journalists and other analysts in my experience don't reach it.

Unfortunately, she also reverses causality and claims that all this was because of a pile-on on her. As you can see if you follow this thread, it was Whitney that started this cycle of hostilities, by dunking on an unrelated (to her) post by Bret W.

If we go back, I think the first real substantial attack between the two was this post by Webb, where she claimed that RFKjr was not going to be nominated for HHS, and went after Bret W for (among other things) who his brother worked for.

https://x.com/_whitneywebb/status/1854591367458197829

Her assertion about RFKjr not getting a position at HHS is based on this contentious interview that frankly I think was misframed by CNN. Lutnick said "No, of course not, **that's not what he wants**, he's not going to be Secretary".

https://x.com/kaitlancollins/status/1853179362066985119

This might be a good point to revisit why she called me an "Elon simp" -- it is because I have shown evidence that various claims she maid vs Musk were not true. For instance:

https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1607606108964925440

Many more sloppy, inaccurate, and/or false assertions in this thread, where I tried to go through her podcast on Musk.

https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1608203147494948864

In the same podcast they accused Matt Taibbi of receiving "curated" information for the Twitter files (despite his repeated explanations of how the process worked) -

https://x.com/alexandrosM/status/1608204844430680064

You'll notice that she's never commented on any of those critiques of her work by me, despite them being far more measured in tone, and even though she now seems to have been aware of them (given the insult she chose to throw at me). Make of that what you will.

Now, let's talk about pile-ons. This back and forth made it to a number of large podcasts and other shows. The first to cover it was @jimmy_dore, who I thought did a good job staying neutral. rumble.com/v6cia37-trump-…

This somehow became a "WEBB ATTACKED BY MAGA" narrative on several other channels, like Due Dissidence, TLAV, and more. Here's a summary/takedown of many of the claims by @giornioFR

https://x.com/giornioFR/status/1883016150075974036

Another one:

https://x.com/giornioFR/status/1883174594888270102

And another one:

https://x.com/giornioFR/status/1882951453922496660

This whole saga is a microcosm of how people will ignore facts, omit any actual research, latch onto a narrative that works for them, and shout it from the rooftops. Emergence in action! Echo chambers are magic!

Now, unfortunately for me, (and likely also for you if you're still reading) I stayed up late last night digging into congressional budget requests and spreadsheets to chase down what actually happened with the WHO in 2020. Don't ask me why.

First narrative shattering fact: The USA has never left the WHO. Not in 2020, and not in 2025. There is a 1-year notice period, and in 2021 the notice was withdrawn by Biden's administration.

However, Trump did halt payments. What happened to the money that was intended for WHO? It got left in a "Overseas Contingency Operations" account, unspent.

(source for this and previous post: ) crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/…

And what happened with that money? Well, when Blinken came in, in 2021, he gave it to the WHO to cover the 2020 assessed contributions. $81m, covering prior underpayment by the US. usaid.gov/sites/default/…

So of the $120m in "assessed contributions" that the USA had to pay to the WHO for 2020, exactly zero was redirected anywhere, because it was all left in place, ready for the Blinken state department to come right in and give it to the WHO. What about the voluntary contributions?

Well, $108 million of those were approved to keep going to the WHO in September 2020 because "WHO has unique capabiliies". We're now at $228m sent to the WHO in 2020.

Source for this is the same report I linked above --

(My thanks to @capitolsheila for linking this document -- I now know a lot more than I ever wanted to know about government spending aka waste. FML)crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/…

According to this, it seems that the final level (including the "in arrears" amounts delivered to the WHO in 2021. So if anyone in the future wonders how much money didn't end up going to the WHO in 2020, it's sth like $195m in voluntary contributions.
state.gov/wp-content/upl…

There has been a particularly persistent argument being proposed, that claims that since the unspent amounts were from the same "account" as the one that the GAVI/COVAX AMC amounts that were provided in 2021, this should somehow be considered as redirection of funds.

The analysis in the posts above this one should provide enough breadcrumbs for someone to realize that this isn't even technically true. The amounts that didn't go to the WHO were from many different accounts (see here for the 2019 amounts/accounts: state.gov/wp-content/upl…) and therefore the claim that these specific amounts that didn't go towards WHO voluntary contributions were used to pay GAVI for the COVAX AMC facility is not accurate.

Even if it were true, this wouldn't prove that there was "redirection", but since the supporting claim isn't true, we don't even have to examine the validity of the theory.