CNN Retracts Fact-Check on Trump's 'Transgender Mice' Comment
CNN Retracts Fact-Check on Trump's 'Transgender Mice' Comment
CNN issued a correction after the network inaccurately asserted that President Donald Trump “falsely claimed” the Biden administration spent $8 million to make mice transgender.
During his joint address to Congress on Tuesday, Trump cited several examples of “appalling waste” he had cut, including $8.2 million in NIH-funded studies on “gender-affirming” hormone treatments mice.
CNN’s Deidre McPhillips initially tried to dispute the claim, arguing only about $500,000 had been allocated for similar research in monkeys — she was later forced to issue a correction after the White House proved CNN’s “fact check” inaccurate in a statement.
“Last night, President Donald J. Trump highlighted many of the egregious examples of waste, fraud and abuse funded by the American taxpayers, including $8 million spent by the Biden Administration ‘for making mice transgender,'” the White House statement reads. “The Fake News losers at CNN immediately tried to fact check it, but President Trump was right (as usual).”
“Trump falsely claimed that the Department of Government Efficiency identified government spending of ‘$8 million for making mice transgender,'” CNN’s original fact check read.
The White House then released a statement listing six NIH grants for studies on hormone treatments in mice, a combined total of $8,290,053. The Biden-era grants included $455,000 to study “gender-affirming hormone therapy on HIV-vaccine induced immune responses, $2.5 million to study the reproductive consequences of hormone therapy, $299,940 to study testosterone therapy on breast cancer risk and treatment outcomes, $735,113 to study the effects of hormone therapy on mouse microbiomes, $1.2 million to study “androgen effects on the reproductive neuroendocrine axis” and $3.1 million to study hormones as mediators of sex influences in asthma. All listed studies involved hormonal replacement in mice.
CNN’s initial fact check Wednesday morning focused narrowly on three NIH studies. One focused on a $299,940 grant from the National Cancer Institute seeking “to compare breast cancer rates among female mice and those receiving testosterone therapy.”
Two others from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases totaling $455,120 focused on how “an HIV vaccine worked in mice that had received cross-sex hormone therapy.”
The outlet later updated its page, changing “Trump falsely claimed” to “This claim needs context.”
The outlet also explicitly acknowledged its earlier error, writing “An earlier version of this item incorrectly characterized as false Trump’s claim about federal money being spent for ‘making mice transgender.'”
“The White House list made clear what Trump, in the speech, did not: The studies were meant to figure out how these treatments might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender,” McPhillips wrote, adding “context” to the initially false article.
Trump Picks Jeanine Pirro as Top Prosecutor in DC
May 9, 2025
2 min
New Pope Leo XIV Spent Years Retweeting Criticism of Trump Policies
May 9, 2025
3 min
Trump Floats Tax Hike for Millionaires
May 9, 2025
2 min
Spain’s Deputy PM Attacked in Broad Daylight by Knife-Wielding Man
May 9, 2025
2 min
Bidens Weigh $30 Million Tell-All Book Deal: Report
May 9, 2025
2 min
Trump to End $2.5 Billion ‘Digital Equity Act’ Passed by Biden
May 9, 2025
<1 min
RFK Jr.’s Ex-Running Mate Attacks Trump’s New Surgeon General Pick
May 9, 2025
2 min
Leo XIV Is the New Pope
May 8, 2025
5 min
Trump Considers Jeanine Pirro to Replace Ed Martin as Top DC Prosecutor
May 8, 2025
2 min
FBI Opens Criminal Investigation of Letitia James
May 8, 2025
2 min
Texas AG Paxton Announces Vote Fraud Charges Against 6 People
May 8, 2025
1 min
Trump Announces Trade Deal with UK
May 8, 2025
1 min
Pakistan ‘Kills’ 50 Indian Soldiers in Retaliation Strikes
May 8, 2025
4 min
Bill Gates Accuses Elon Musk of ‘Killing’ Children with USAID Cuts
May 8, 2025
3 min
Trump Plans Executive Order to Slash Drug Prices
May 8, 2025
2 min
Trump to Announce Trade Deal with UK Thursday
May 8, 2025
3 min
Trump to Remove Biden-Era Chip Export Restrictions
May 8, 2025
3 min
Pro-Palestinian Protesters Take Over Columbia University Library — 80+ Arrested
May 8, 2025
5 min
Iranian Terror Cell Plotted Attack on Israeli Embassy in London
May 8, 2025
3 min
Putin and Maduro Sign Strategic Partnership Treaty in Moscow
May 8, 2025
<1 min