The facts behind the 19 programs President Donald Trump described as ‘waste’

Ten million dollars for male circumcision in Mozambique, $8 million to make "mice transgender," and $20 million for "the Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East."

For three minutes during his 100-minute address to Congress March 4, President Donald Trump ticked off 19 government spending items that he described as "appalling waste" rooted out by his Department of Government Efficiency under billionaire Elon Musk’s oversight.

The projects sounded alternately obscure and outrageous and, by Trump’s telling, carried price tags of $250,000 to $22 billion. 

"Forty million dollars to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants," Trump said before looking up and shaking his head. "Nobody knows what that is."

Republicans in the chamber broke into laughter.

"Eight million dollars to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho," he continued, "which nobody has ever heard of."

Laughter again.

"This is real," he said after describing the mice project.

But was it? PolitiFact combed through the details of all 19 projects — items that together amounted to a minuscule fraction of the federal government’s overall $6.8 trillion in annual spending — and found Trump exaggerated, oversimplified, misled and, in some cases, got his numbers wrong.

Trump’s choice of projects fit with his characterization of the federal government as being too "woke," too involved in foreign aid and too concerned with migrant wellbeing. Three involved immigration. Two dealt with issues related to LGBTQ+ people. Thirteen involved foreign countries, two in Latin America, six in Africa, three in Asia and two in Eastern Europe.

But in some cases, the items Trump mocked could actually support some of his policy views, including his campaign promise to curb immigration. The $40 million for "sedentary migrants," for example, is a program designed to deter Venezuelans in Colombia from migrating to the U.S.

"His ‘examples’ are not designed to convince, but to overwhelm," said Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M University communications professor who specializes in political rhetoric.

Absent details, she said, these one-line descriptions act as "an accumulation of evidence" showing widespread spending on projects that violate Trump’s preferred policies.

In an effort to fill in the details, we tracked down the contracts behind  Trump’s 19 one-liners so readers could review the context and decide for themselves:

Here are some of the highlights from our analysis.

All 13 of the international programs Trump mentioned involved U.S. Agency for International Development grants or contracts. USAID makes up 0.3% of the federal budget in fiscal year 2024. And although it has historically received bipartisan support, public polling finds Americans generally believe the U.S. sends too much money to other countries. 

For someone unfamiliar with international development aid, the items on Trump’s list may sound "loosey goosey," Phyllis Pomerantz, a Duke University international development professor,  said. But Trump’s description often failed to capture the purpose of the underlying work.

The $10 million contract for "male circumcision," for example, funds HIV/AIDS prevention in Mozambique, which has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection. Based on research, the World Health Organization has for several years identified voluntary circumcision as a low-cost but highly effective form of HIV/AIDS prevention. 

The procedure can reduce the likelihood of contracting HIV by as much as 60%, studies found. Trump has not always opposed such funding; between 2007 and the end of 2023, PEPFAR, or the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, supported over 32.5 million circumcisions, including in Trump’s first term. 

Other projects addressed countries’ political tensions.

For example, the "$14 million for social cohesion in Mali" referred to an effort to help bring more stability to the West African nation following a 2012 military coup that allowed several armed groups, including al-Qaida, to take over parts of the country. One of the conflict’s drivers is tied to natural resources. For example, a January 2024 USAID report said that conflicts often arise when "animals destroy crops or graze on private property, or when farmers disagree on the boundaries of plots." The social cohesion project aimed to prevent those issues so they don’t turn into broader violent conflicts, the report said. Before the $14 million award was terminated, USAID paid the agency running the program $1.2 million. 

The $20 million "Sesame Street" project Trump described referred to a USAID grant that sought to bring stability to Iraqi children after years of conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It wasn’t to fund a TV show, though. USAID gave a grant to Sesame Workshop, the company that makes "Sesame Street" and international versions of the children’s educational show — including "Ahlan Simsim," which is broadcast in the Middle East and North Africa. But a Sesame Workshop spokesperson told PolitiFact the grant didn’t create "Alhan Simsim," that was funded by philanthropic donors including the MacArthur Foundation and the LEGO Foundation, not the U.S. government. The USAID grant supported the creation of Iraqi learning materials and teaching guides.

An archived USAID page about the project put the grant’s total at $20 million, but the grant’s description on USA Spending shows $13 million was authorized. 

On March 10, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83% of all foreign aid contracts would be cut and those remaining would be brought under state department control.

(The White House on YouTube)

Trump cited "$45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma," formally known as Myanmar, a Southeast Asian nation with 135 government-recognized ethnic groups.

The scholarship program was designed to provide higher education scholarships to over 1,000 students from marginalized communities in Myanmar where armed conflict and civil unrest in just the last decade has included state-led persecution of the Rohingya, an ethnic minority once targeted by the military for ethnic cleansing. 

Since a 2021 military coup, the government and armed ethnic groups have been in a brutal civil war. The scholarship aimed to "foster academic excellence" and strengthen the country’s overall educational landscape by providing ethnic and religious minorities, women and others affected the chance to study in neighboring countries, including Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. As of March 12, $17.3 million had been obligated — meaning that the government is legally required to pay that amount — and $3.6 million had been spent, according to USA Spending. 

Trump also misled that the federal government spent "$8 million for making mice transgender."

A White House list detailing these research grants showed that between 2019 and 2025, the National Institutes of Health funded mice-based research on how gender-affirming hormone treatments interact with other aspects of health, such as immune responses, breast cancer risk, fertility, and asthma. The purpose was to study specific medical treatments in non-human test subjects, not to make mice transgender. 

Trump’s claim that New York City got "$59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms" needs context. The city did get money via a congressionally approved program that reimburses local and state governments and nonprofit organizations that provide immigrants basic services, such as temporary shelter and food. The city spent $19 million on hotel rooms at an average of $156 dollars per night per hotel room, below the General Services Administration’s rate. ​

Trump also misleadingly said that the Department of Health and Human Services spent $22 billion "to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens." That’s the amount the Office of Refugee Resettlement spent since 2020 on grants to nonprofits that supported eligible people such as refugees, according to a report from Open the Books, a nonprofit government watchdog. 

The Office of Refugee Resettlement generally does not give services to immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Certain Cuban and Haitian immigrants can receive benefits regardless of how they entered the U.S.

One of the office’s programs help refugees save for a car, business, home or education. The program gives certain eligible people financial literacy training that includes a system of financial rewards for people who successfully save.

Beyond Trump’s misleading descriptions, his list often contained numerical or factual errors. 

We couldn’t find an $8 million grant for LGBTQ+ issues in the south African nation of Lesotho — the most spending we identified was $2 million. A grant to support independent media in Moldova was worth $11 million, not $32 million, as he said. And his mention of a $47 million item for learning in Asia appeared to reference the program’s "potential" award amount, which includes potential future extensions of the contract, not the actual contract value of $22 million.  

Trump went heavy on the details about "$250,000 to increase vegan local climate action innovation in Zambia." These grants were awarded to grassroots climate-related projects, but they weren’t specifically vegan; in fact, one worked to create "sustainable income for rural communities through beekeeping," which is not vegan.

Several of the contracts weren’t new to the Biden administration. The contract for media in Moldova was awarded in 2017 under Trump. 

The contract for "larval fish monitoring" went to the New Mexico-based American Southwest Ichthyological Researchers, which has been awarded many federal contracts, including under Trump’s first administration.

PolitiFact Staff Writer Madison Czopek contributed to this report.

UPDATE, March 14, 2025: This story has been updated to reflect information PolitiFact received from Sesame Street Workshop following publication.