Top Democrat presidential hopeful delivers bizarre speech about ‘Sesame Street in Iraq’

Top Democrat Jasmine Crockett has delivered a rambling speech about how Iraqi ‘Sesame Street’ helps fight anti-American radicalization. 

The Trump administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in February over its alleged misuse of taxpayer money, including spending $20 million on a Middle Eastern version of the children’s show. 

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Crockett defended USAID’s support for the muppet-based TV program, saying it helps prevent potentially hostile countries from becoming ‘radicalized’ against the US. 

‘[When] we start to talk about whether or not ‘Sesame Street’ or anything else that’s on NPR or PBS ends up in other places, this is so there is not this warped thought process about the western world or the United States,’ the Texas lawmaker said.  

‘We’re talking about making sure that we don’t end up allowing people to be radicalized against us because they have a terrible vision of us because they maybe in a government that actually puts out bad, terrible propaganda about us.’

Crockett, 44, who has represented Texas’s 30th congressional district since 2023, did not elaborate on how the show prevents anti-American radicalization. 

It comes as news emerged that the Missouri-born politician appears to be considering running for the US Senate in the 2026 midterm elections. 

In an interview last week with liberal comedian Hasan Minhaj, Crockett said that she already has her ‘expiration date in mind for the House,’ and has been ‘eyeing people to replace’ her.

Polling released by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) this week shows Crockett leads a hypothetical Democratic primary with 35 percent of likely voters, followed by former Rep. Colin Allred at 20 percent.

As a rising star in the Democratic Party, Crockett could even become the next presidential hopeful for liberals. 

Crockett isn’t alone in defending USAID’s funding of the Iraqi Sesame Street scheme, as other progressives have also spoken out in favor of the project. 

USAID gave the $20 million grant to a nonprofit called Sesame Workshop, which delivers the show known as Ahlan Simim, or ‘Welcome Sesame’, in order to help it make a slicker version of the show in 2021. 

The project is made up of direct healthcare outreach programs, alongside a version of the popular kids program screened to around 29 million children in the Middle East and North Africa, often in areas where schooling has been disrupted by war.

The Ahlan Simsim YouTube channel has 1.38 million subscribers and videos dating back nine years. Early videos posted before the USAID funding featured low-quality video production and puppetry.

Later videos show classic characters such as Elmo and the Cookie Monster along with ‘new characters such as ‘Jad,’ who was forced to flee his home, ‘Basma,’ who welcomed Jad when he arrived in his new community, and ‘Ameera’, who lives with a disability’, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which helps deliver the show. 

They ‘act out stories that help marginalized children understand their emotions and experiences and teach them early learning fundamentals like counting and the alphabet’.  

Delaware representative Chris Coons also argued the project could benefit the US’s interests overseas as a form of soft power.

‘This isn’t just funding a kids’ show for children — millions of children — in countries like Iraq,’ Coons told CNN. 

‘It’s a show that helps teach values, helps teach public health, helps prevent kids from dying from dysentery and disease and helps push values like collaboration, peacefulness, and cooperation in a society where the alternative is ISIS, extremism, and terrorism.’ 

Coons quoted President Donald Trump’s previous Secretary of Defense General James Mattis, who was also a proponent of soft power.

‘If you slash development and aid spending then I’m going to need more bullets for our troops,’ he said. 

Coons also claimed that the project is ‘pennies on the dollar’ when compared to the $850 billion defense budget.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst cited the project as another example of ‘wasteful’ spending by the embattled federal agency.

‘USAID asked, “Can you tell me how to get how to get to Sesame Street?” and ended up in Iraq,’ Ernst said.

‘USAID authorized a whopping $20 million to create a Sesame Street in Iraq. USAID has long been a reckless, out-of-control, unaccountable rogue agency.’

According to the defunct USAID website, Ahlan Simsim is ‘designed to promote inclusion, mutual respect, and understanding’. 

Over the last six years, Ahlan Simsim has reached over 3.5 million children and caregivers with direct services, as well as millions more through its TV show.

René Celaya, Managing Director for Ahlan Simsim, wrote in a 2022 Medium post that USAID funding went towards early childhood development (ECD) services in the Middle East countries including Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

‘As we entered a more mature phase of the program, we shifted our focus to scaling and partnerships to ensure the long-term sustainability of Ahlan Simsim’s impact on the systems that deliver ECD across the region and around the world,’ she wrote.

The IRC claims that the project functions in areas where millions of children have been displaced by war, serving as an educational tool when schooling is disrupted.

Its Wash Up! program has educated more than 200,000 children on proper hygiene to help prevent deadly waterborne diseases across 15 countries, according to the IRC.

USAID spending has come under scrutiny since Elon Musk took a sledgehammer to the agency in hopes of reducing public spending.

The White House has touted schemes such as a ‘transgender opera’ in Colombia, a DEI musical in Ireland and $2.5 million on electric vehicles in Vietnam as evidence of wasteful spending by the department.