Jimmy Kimmel Live YouTube

Jimmy Kimmel continued his comedic critique of Donald Trump’s address to Congress on his ABC late-night show. During the March 5 episode, Kimmel took aim at Trump for falsely claiming that Joe Biden’s administration spent “$8 million on making mice transgender.” Trump insisted, “this is real,” to which Kimmel retorted, “No, it’s not real.”

Kimmel elaborated, “When you hear the president of the United States say we’re spending $8 million on sex change operations for mice, you might think, ‘Well, he’s probably exaggerating, but there must be some truth to it.’ Turns out, there isn’t. It’s completely false.”

He clarified that the government’s funding was for research involving transgenic mice—genetically modified mice used in lab tests to study diseases. “It has nothing to do with being transgender, except for the ‘trans’ part of the word,” Kimmel quipped. “Do they know this and ignore it, or are they too clueless to Google it? Or maybe they think we’re too clueless to Google it? I’m not sure.”

Adding humor, Kimmel joked, “They’re turning Mickeys into Minnies and Minnies into Mickeys! No, they’re just trying to cure dementia and heart disease—things you’d think Trump would support, considering both are catching up to him.”

Trump’s claim was widely debunked by outlets like CNN, which clarified that the research involved studying how cross-sex hormone therapy affected HIV vaccine responses in mice. The studies were not about making mice transgender but aimed at understanding the potential health impacts of such treatments on humans.

As reported by Variety, Trump’s address to Congress drew an average of 36.6 million viewers, surpassing Joe Biden’s most recent State of the Union address, which garnered 32.2 million viewers in 2024. However, Trump’s latest address fell short of his 2017 peak audience of 47.7 million viewers.

Watch Kimmel’s full monologue on Trump’s address in the video below.