President Donald Trump on Wednesday resurrected his whopper once again to a group of investors that the Biden administration spent $100 million on condoms for Hamas.
But Trump added that he didn’t want to dwell on the issue because it was “incenjuary,” possibly intending to say “incendiary.”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who originated the tall tail, initially claimed his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had stopped $50 million from being sent to Gaza for the purchase of condoms.
He has since admitted it’s not true, claiming that the condoms were earmarked for Mozambique, He told reporters: “Some of the things I say will be incorrect and should be corrected,”
Trump apparently missed the memo.
He repeated the Hamas lie at an investor event in Miami sponsored by various Saudi government entities. The main backer was Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which contributed a massive $2 billion to an investment fund set up by the president’s son-in-law and former White House adviser Jared Kushner after the end of Trump’s first administration.
“Does everyone know what a condom is?” Trump awkwardly asked the audience in Miami. He named the imaginary condoms among a list of items he claimed were a wasteful expenditure of money by the federal government.
Trump complained to the investors: “$50 million, plus another $50 million for condoms for Hamas. Do you know about that? — $100 million dollars for condoms. Condoms. Does everybody know what a condom is? For Hamas. [A] hundred million dollars.”
And “these are just some ... I could read the list all day but I just don’t wanna bore you,” Trump added, referring to his claims of money wasted by the U.S.
He said he wouldn’t go into further detail because the issue was “incenjuary.”
Musk was sitting in the audience.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt last month falsely insisted that DOGE had uncovered a $50 million line item for condoms in Gaza.
Trump repeated the lie later, but ballooned the figure to $100 million, and claimed the imaginary prophylactics were earmarked for Hamas. In an even weirder twist, the president claimed the condoms were being used in makeshift bombs as balloons to hoist incendiary devices.
Musk and Trump’s claims of wasted funds and astounding amounts of money saved by DOGE have been riddled with errors. Musk claimed Tuesday that DOGE had already saved $55 billion, but only had papers listing about a third of that amount.
In addition, two of the agencies Musk claimed DOGE shut down were terminated during the Biden administration. And funds cut in a contract, which he cited as $18 billion was actually $18 million.
Musk and Trump have also been claiming that “tens of millions” of dead people are collecting Social Security benefits, which would be a substantial portion of the 67 million Americans listed as collecting payments.
"So, when they're throwing around numbers like tens of millions of dead people are getting Social Security, well there's only 67 million total. What are they talking about? Half the people are actually dead? The numbers are so ridiculous. It's not true," Kathleen Romig, the director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told ABC News.
