‘You Numbskulls!’ Rachel Maddow tears into Trump over ‘terrible’ transgender mice claim

Rachel Maddow reacted after President Donald Trump stated this week that the Biden administration provided $8 million to scientists in an effort to transgenderize mice.

During his 99-minute speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Trump cited several instances of “appalling waste” by the previous government. He claimed that Elon Musk’s Department of federal Efficiency (DOGE), the federal cost-cutting agency, discovered that the Biden administration spent $8 million on “making mice transgender”. Trump’s remarks prompted confusion among many as people are still wondering what exactly he was talking about.

Experts soon recognised that Trump was probably mistaking the term “transgender” for “transgenic,” which describes mice whose DNA has been with foreign one. The main purpose of using human DNA is to enable trials that show how specific drugs or diseases react with the rodents, offering deeper insight into how they might impact humans.

Rachel Maddow roasts Trump over his ‘terrible’ transgender mice claim

MSNBC’s Maddow shed light on Trump’s remarks as she started her broadcast by joking about how few people viewed Trump’s speech to Congress, which was the least watched of all of his speeches. “I know you didn’t watch,” Maddow said.

“But one of the things he said in his speech was that one of the terrible, liberal things that his top campaign donor had discovered was happening in government research to make mice transgender.”

She clarified that it’s “transgenic mice” in reality. Despite being mice, transgenic mice are utilised in a variety of scientific studies since they are genetically modified for the study of human diseases and disorders, Maddow pointed out.

“It is transgenic mice, you numbskulls,” the MSNBC host said while targeting Trump. “But sure, go ahead and shut down all the labs studying all the diseases because what are you, 5?”

Also Read: Rachel Maddow and her team to suffer brutal blow like Joy Reid amid MSNBC overhaul?

White House reacts

Meanwhile, White House published an article on its website titled “Yes, Biden spent millions on transgender animal experiments,” detailing all of the funds that were used to “perform[gender] experiments on mice,” such as $3.1 million to investigate gonadal hormones as mediators of sex and gender influences in asthma and $2.5 million for research on the reproductive outcomes of steroid hormone injection.

The White House article includes links to several NIH publications. Blasting CNN over its attempts to fact-check Trump, the White House called it “Fake News losers”.

“Under the Biden Administration, the National Institutes of Health doled out millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded grants for institutions across the country to perform transgender experiments on mice,” it said.