As usual, President Donald Trump played the Democrats and their establishment media allies like a fiddle.
Eager to refute everything Trump says, establishment commentators like CNN’s Van Jones inadvertently serve the president’s purpose. They haggle, they “fact-check,” and they practically hyperventilate in the process. But, in the end, they keep Trump’s popular message in the news.
In a clip posted Thursday to the social media platform X, Jones foolishly challenged conservative commentator Scott Jennings’ accurate claim that X owner Elon Musk, head of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, had uncovered $8 million in indefensible federal spending on transgender mice.
The clip began with fellow commentator David Axelrod accusing Musk of indiscriminate cuts in federal spending.
“Well, it’s not all indiscriminate. I mean, we don’t really need the transgender mice, do we?” Jennings replied.
Jones immediately interjected.
“That’s not even real!” the liberal commentator insisted.
Jennings and Jones then spent a few moments going back and forth about the authenticity of the transgender mice claim.
Of course, the conservative had it right.
Are you a fan of Scott Jennings?
During his joint address to Congress on Tuesday evening, Trump ran through a list of federal items that no sane American would support, including $8 million for transgender mice.
Initially, CNN fact-checked that claim as “false” but then quietly edited its own article after the White House published proof.
“Is it real or not? Did we have to say it was real or not?” Jennings asked his fellow panelists, knowing full well that the network had indeed updated its own fact check.
Unfortunately, that did not prevent Jones from issuing what sounded like a passionate defense of the $8 million expenditure.
🐁 🐁🐁 transgender mice! pic.twitter.com/SIPZcp2ELr
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) March 6, 2025
Jennings, of course, has earned a reputation for deft handling of his generally unhinged fellow CNN panelists.
The real story, however, involves the ease with which Trump seems to manipulate his antagonists into doing his bidding.
After all, at a news conference several weeks before his joint address to Congress, the president had run through a similar list of indefensible spending.
Clearly, therefore, Trump wants those spending items in the public mind. If he did not, then he would not have repeated some of them on Tuesday evening.
For reasons only Jones could explain, the liberal commentator gave the president exactly what the president wanted.
In fact, Jones went even further. He gave Trump the bonus gift of appearing to defend $8 million in federal spending on transgender mice.
Small wonder that sensible American voters find themselves alienated from the Trump-hating, Democrat-dominated establishment.
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