President Trump’s marathon speech to a joint session of Congress included a list of this-can’t-be real wasteful spending uncovered by DOGE in recent weeks. That long list mentioned $8 million spent for “making mice transgender.”
“This is real,” Trump, interrupted by laughter, insisted.
A fact-checking article on President Trump is routine for the media, especially since he is known to exaggerate and embellish, so a fact-check from CNN ripped the president on several issues. On the topic of those mice, CNN first stated $477,121 was awarded by the National Institutes of Health for HIV research. That research used monkeys, not mice, the fact-check stated.
“It’s not clear where the $8 million figure came from,” the CNN article concluded.
It didn't take long, however, for the White House to respond with an official list of government grants, six in all, totaling $8.2 million. That list included the NIH research grant, for $455,000. The link to the NIH states the research uses mice – not monkeys – who are given hormone treatments to test the immunity of HIV-positive transgender people.
The research study states:
We hypothesize that mice and humans share sets of immune-related genes that are impacted by a feminizing hormone regimen, and that mice undergoing XHT will exhibit altered immune responses to a HIV vaccine compared to control male mice.
In other words, at least in laymen’s terms, making mice transgender.
Now confronted with the White House list, CNN wrote a second longer article with a telling editor’s note that admitted an “earlier version of this item incorrectly characterized as false Trump’s claim about federal money being spent for ‘making mice transgender.’”
“The article has been updated,” the note further states, “with context about spending, which was for research studies on the potential human health impact of treatments used in gender-affirming care.”
Since the speech, liberal media outlets have run with the claim the White House clumsily misunderstood the research word “transgenic.” That term relates to altering DNA for research purposes. A keyboard search of the research grants by AFN never showed the word “transgenic” but the word “transgender” showed up several times, including four times in the NIH research cited by CNN.
Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night ABC host, also mocked Trump for supposedly mistaking the words.
“The government spent money on transgenic mice, which are genetically modified mice they use in lab tests to study disease,” Kimmel told his audience. “It has nothing to do with being transgender.”
Kimmel’s comedic mockery might deserve a fact-check for context, too. All of the six studies state their goal is to improve the health of transgender people using taxpayer-funded research that requires mice.
Nicholas Fondacaro of the Media Research Center says the Trump-hating liberal media is fixated on trying to catch the president in a lie.
“Anything he says, they view it as a nail and they're the hammer,” he observes. “And they're just going to try to hammer down that nail whenever he dares make a factual statement.”
Asked if President Trump is toying with the media, Fondacaro says Trump “absolutely” knows the media will "take the bait" and show what Trump Derangement Syndrome looks like.
