A discussion on Wednesday’s CNN NewsNight took a turn so outrageous that even CNN’s own fact-checkers would object. During the discussion, political commentator Ana Navarro accused President Trump of “making up stories about transgender mice” despite CNN’s own website saying otherwise.
Navarro’s comment came on a panel which was lamenting the internal chaos plaguing the Democratic Party since their defeat in the election of the previous November. As the mood turned nostalgic for the Obama years, Navarro fumed:
(...) Barack Obama is living his best life, and…the strength from the Democrats has got to come from the people. Because… the only thing that the talking heads and the elected officials do, is attack each other. Today, instead of attacking Trump's lies, and yesterday's state of the union- attacking the fact that Trump was making up stories about transgender mice- I guess he thinks the mice are all turning into little Emilia Perezes. We are talking about the Democrats and how they are infighting again.
CNN had indeed been circulating the allegation that Trump had lied when he stated that his new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), had caught the government spending “$ 8 million for making mice transgender.”
However, they were soon forced to admit they had been a little fast and loose with the accusation, and there was, in fact, more to the story. In a fact-check on their website, CNN admitted that the morning after the speech the White House had produced documentary proof of federal grants of $8.3 million for “health studies that involve mice receiving treatments that can be used in gender-affirming health care” for the purpose of “figur[ing] out how these treatments might affect the health of humans who take them, not for the purpose of making mice transgender.”
A correction from Deidre McPhillips read, “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 with context about the spending, which was for research studies on the potential human health impacts of treatments used in gender-affirming care.”
As CNN was still eager to emphasize, the records indicated that the purpose of using these hormones on lab mice was to test their effects on humans receiving gender therapy, but whether or not the endgame of subjecting mice to such procedures was to make the mice themselves “little Emilia Perezes,” that was in fact what was being done. Therefore, Trump’s statement was not “ma[de] up,” and Navarro had falsely accused the president of lying.
On this occasion, CNN had so flagrantly been caught dead in their tracks, even they had to backpedal a bit on their foolish drivel. However, their on-air personalities did not seem to get the memo.
To read the full transcript is below:
CNN Newsnight
03/05/2025
10:23 PM[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: LOST DEMS FACE INTERNAL STRIFE OVER STRATEGY, BEHAVIOR]
ANA NAVARRO: (...) Barack Obama is living his best life, and it's going- the met- the strength from the Democrats has got to come from the people.
Because the- all- the only thing that the talking heads and the elected officials do, is attack each other.
Today, instead of attacking Trump's lies, and yesterday's state of the union- attacking the fact that Trump was making up stories about transgender mice- I guess he thinks the mice are all turning into little Emilia Perezes- We are talking about the Democrats and how they are infighting again.
