Trump Doubles Down on Lie, Says Government Funded ‘Transgender Surgery on Mice’

Donald Trump perpetuated and expanded on a lie he told during his joint address to Congress where he claimed the Biden administration spent millions of dollars on scientific research to make mice transgender.

Trump in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that aired Sunday said that the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, billionaire and world’s richest man Elon Musk, has “found hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fake [government] contracts.”

“I read them — just a tiny portion of them — the other night,” Trump said. “Transgender surgery on mice — hundreds of — I mean the money they’re spending on all of this stuff. The whole thing’s a scam.”

After Trump alleged that the government spent millions “making mice transgender” in his congressional speech, outlets fact checked Trump’s claims, and the White House released a list of studies it said backed up the assertions. But Rolling Stone’s close look at the list revealed that the vast majority of the research was not focused on making mice transgender. It was aiming to gain knowledge to help human health — for example examining the effects of estrogen on asthma in women or how cross-sex hormones affect fertility. One study mentions “transgenic mice” which is not the same thing as “transgender mice.” Transgenic mice are genetically modified mice that “have had DNA from another source put into their DNA,” according to the National Cancer Institute. These kinds of mice are used to study how certain diseases might affect humans.

None of the studies on the White House’s list looked at “transgender surgery” on mice, something Trump tried to claim on Fox News that the government was funding.

Trump then went on to brag that Musk has sussed out government waste — when, in fact, he is dismantling large portions of the

government which could ultimately cost the country more money — and vastly overstated how much DOGE is allegedly saving taxpayers. Musk and the Trump administration have closed Social Security field offices and fired online workers who help beneficiaries; weakened the regulators who oversee Musk’s businesses, paving the path for him to further enrich himself; fired thousands of government employees, including veterans and air traffic control support workers; and slashed health care for sick 9/11 responders.

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But Trump says he’s happy with Musk’s work so far and signaled he agrees with the billionaire’s plan to cut up to 70 percent of the federal workforce, which would have devastating effects. In a February analysis, firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said that planned job cuts increased by 245 percent that month, reaching the highest levels since July 2020 during the economic fallout caused by the Covid-19 global pandemic, with government jobs accounting for the majority of the layoffs.

“What [Musk has] also done is made people realize how many people should be cut,” Trump told Bartiromo. “Because normally, you go in and you say, ‘Alright, cut 4 percent of your workforce.’ He said, ‘Cut 50 percent, 60 percent, 70 percent.’ That’s a big thing, and he’s done a great job.”

Trump continued to sing Musk’s praises: “He’s paying a price for it, I guess, I don’t know. He actually is a real patriot. This is something that’s really not good for him. And yet he’s doing it. But he’s opened a lot of eyes.”

Recent targets of the Musk layoffs include: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Veterans Affairs, Internal Revenue Service, USAID, Social Security Administration, Labor Department, Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Agency, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Energy, U.S. Forest Service, Small Business Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, National Nuclear Safety Administration, General Services Administration, and Federal Aviation Administration.