Amanpour & Co., which airs on PBS and CNN International, invited New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, and to blame it on Elon Musk. Is this Kristof’s first TV appearance since the summer’s controversy over his indecent hit piece from Israel?
Kristof’s recent columns blame tragic situations in impoverished Third World countries on Elon Musk and his cost-cutting initiative DOGE, namely cuts to foreign aid delivered by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
After a Kristof soundbite (“We have another huge crisis, again with mass murder, mass rape, with starvation, and we have the sound of silence”), guest host Bianna Golodryga’s introduction played up “the catastrophic hole left by USAID” to set up Kristof’s later segment with NPR anchor Michel Martin.
After Martin introduced us to Kristof’s reporting on USAID, Kristof unleashed some wild stats:
Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, New York Times: I don't think that the American public appreciates, you know, how many children are dying unnecessarily, how many women are dying in childbirth unnecessarily because of these steps that we've taken. You know, USAID was saving one life every 10 seconds until Elon Musk came along, at a cost of 23 cents for every $100 of national income. That seems to me a bargain.
Which PR factory is manufacturing statistics like these?
As if the United States withdrawing aid is responsible for anything awful that happens anywhere. Kristof told a story about a pregnant woman in Uganda who went into a difficult labor and died for want of diesel fuel for an ambulance.
Kristof: ….But Yama died because we didn't think it was worth it to provide fuel for that ambulance. And I would hope that when we think of it in those micro terms, we might feel a little more empathy and a little more compassion.
The chain of events that led from USAID cuts to the woman’s death are weak, but his presumption that he knows how American’s tax money should be spent is titanium-strong. As awful as the story is, one rarely heard praise for America for anything from Kristof’s corner of the political spectrum until DOGE attempted actual spending reductions.
Martin’s last question to Kristof was the softest possible rendering of his notorious May 11 report, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” in which he alleged without corroboration that Israel soldiers, settlers, and especially prison guards have long committed sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners. The most fantastical charge: Israel prisons train dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners.
Martin took Kristof at his word about the scurrilous article. She recontextualized Kristof’s slime to fit with his obnoxious reporting from Sudan and Uganda and lamented such reports “just are not being taken seriously by much of the world.”
Michel Martin talks with Nick Kristof on PBS's Amanpour and offers no disputation against his shoddy "dog rape" allegations: "...another piece of reporting that you did this year, an investigation into allegations of sexual violence against Palestinians in Israeli detention...." pic.twitter.com/U9EQH0ybhk
— Clay Waters 🇮🇱 (@claywaters44) July 25, 2026
Martin: Before we let you go, I want to ask about another piece of reporting that you did this year, an investigation into allegations of sexual violence against Palestinians in Israeli detention. It generated, I don't know, an extraordinary reaction from, I would say, pretty much across the political spectrum. In a way, it is kind of a piece with the other stories we've been talking about. We're talking about conditions that are extreme, that are causing extreme suffering, that you feel are that your reporting says and that your observation says are just are not being taken seriously by much of the world….
Kristof bizarrely defended his report by citing the operationally anti-Semitic hotbed, the United Nations.
Kristof: I talked to 14 people who had experienced sexual violence at the hands of Israeli authorities or settlers. And then the U.N. then followed up shortly thereafter, actually, by putting Israel on a list for the first time of countries that do engage in this kind of sexual violence….And even more than allowing the Red Cross to visit prisoners, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. And if he thinks that he will be exonerated, all the more reason to allow the Red Cross to interview those prisoners.
Kristof has always been ready to believe the best of tyrannical Islam and the worst of democratic Israel. How many visits did Israeli hostages get from the Red Cross during their infinitely more brutal captivity?
