Washington, D.C. – New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has publicly accused President Donald Trump of fabricating claims about government spending on “transgender mice,” igniting a fresh political skirmish that has drawn attention to media fact-checking and government-funded research.
The controversy stems from Trump’s recent address to Congress on March 4, where he asserted that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), co-led by Elon Musk, had uncovered $8 million in federal funds spent on “making mice transgender.”
Booker, a prominent Democrat, took to X on March 6 to denounce the statement as a “bizarre lie,” while CNN’s initial fact-check siding with Booker was later retracted, adding fuel to the debate.
In his X post, Booker wrote, “While Americans worry about rent and groceries going up, Trump is spending his time making up bizarre lies about ‘transgender mice’ and blaming others for problems he promised he’d solve. He lies to you because he doesn’t respect you. I’m going to call it out when I see it.”
The senator followed up with a second post clarifying that the spending Trump referenced involved transgenic mice—genetically modified animals used in biomedical research for nearly five decades—not “transgender mice.”
Booker argued that such studies aim to improve human health treatments, not to alter the gender identity of rodents, as Trump’s phrasing implied.
Trump’s claim, made during a speech that drew 36.6 million viewers, was part of a broader narrative targeting what he described as wasteful spending under the Biden administration.
“Just listen to some of the appalling waste,” Trump said. “$8 million for making mice transgender. This is real.” The White House doubled down on the assertion the following day with a press release titled “Yes, Biden Spent Millions on Transgender Animal Experiments,” listing $8.3 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants for studies involving mice and hormone treatments.
These studies, however, focused on the effects of gender-affirming therapies on human health conditions like breast cancer, asthma, and HIV vaccine efficacy—not on creating “transgender mice.”
While the experiment didn’t specifically make mice transgendered, the mice in the experiment were use to stud the affect of ‘transgender’ gender affirming therapies on mice.
CNN initially fact-checked Trump’s statement on March 4, asserting that it was false and suggesting he might have been referring to a $477,121 NIH grant from 2021-2022 for hormone therapy research on monkeys, not mice.
The network’s report, penned by journalist Deirdre McPhillips, stated, “It’s not clear where the $8 million figure came from,” and emphasized that no such “transgender mice” experiments existed. However, after the White House released its detailed list of grants on March 5, CNN revised its stance.
The updated fact-check, published on March 6, acknowledged that Trump’s claim “needs context” rather than being outright false, noting that the studies involved mice receiving treatments akin to those used in gender-affirming care for humans. A correction at the bottom of the article admitted, “An earlier version of this item incorrectly characterized as false Trump’s claim about federal money being spent for ‘making mice transgender.’”
The retraction sparked a wave of reactions. Trump supporters on X and conservative outlets like Fox News hailed it as a victory, accusing CNN of bias and celebrating the White House’s rebuttal, which had branded the network’s initial report as the work of “Fake News losers.”
Meanwhile, critics of Trump, including Booker, maintained that the president’s rhetoric was deliberately misleading.
“Transgenic mice are not transgender mice,” Booker stressed in his follow-up post, pointing to the scientific distinction between genetic modification for research and the anthropomorphic implication of Trump’s words.
The NIH studies in question, detailed in the White House release, include a $299,940 grant to examine breast cancer risks in mice treated with testosterone (mirroring transgender men’s hormone therapy) and a $3.1 million project exploring how gonadal hormones influence asthma—research with potential benefits for both transgender and cisgender populations. Scientists and health advocates have defended these studies as critical for understanding hormone-related health outcomes, dismissing Trump’s characterization as a distortion meant to inflame cultural tensions.
