The Blubber

As part of his ongoing effort to expose what he calls government waste, fraud, and abuse, President Donald Trump recently rattled off a list of taxpayer-funded initiatives: $19 million for biodiversity in Nepal; $10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique; $14 million for social cohesion in Mali.

“Forty-two million for Johns Hopkins—great place—to research and drive social and behavior change in Uganda. Forty-two million,” Trump said during a Feb. 18 news conference. “What about us? What about social change in our country?”

Trump and billionaire Elon Musk often cite these types of government contracts without providing details on their origins or intended purpose. And supporters of the Department of Government Efficiency’s cost-cutting mission frequently claim these contracts were hidden from public view.

DOGE maintains a website listing federal contracts it claims to have canceled, with some information on their objectives and alleged savings. The list includes a $1 billion Social Security technology support contract, international development deals worth millions for climate initiatives, medical aid, and diversity programs, as well as consulting and data reporting contracts for the Department of Education.

While DOGE has not presented evidence of fraud in these contracts, Trump routinely refers to them as fraudulent.

These contracts were never secret. Congress approved the spending. The DOGE website claims the department has identified $55 billion in savings, but its self-reported “wall of receipts” only accounts for about $8.6 billion—roughly 0.1% of the federal government’s $6.8 trillion budget in the last fiscal year.

The conflicting narratives surrounding these contracts can be overwhelming and difficult to parse. PolitiFact examined the claims to clarify where the numbers come from and what they really mean.

Government Spending Was Not a Secret

Many Trump and Musk supporters have asserted that the records DOGE is reviewing were previously hidden from the public until Musk’s team exposed them. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed in a Feb. 15 X post that this spending had been “hidden from Congress for decades.”

That’s false. The vast majority of contracts Trump has called out—along with those listed on DOGE’s website—have long been publicly accessible in federal databases. Since 2007, USASpending.gov has tracked all federal contracts, grants, and awards exceeding $25,000.

For instance, one of the contracts Trump highlighted—funding male circumcision in Mozambique—can be found in the database. It’s a grant awarded to Associacao Elos, a nonprofit organization, to support voluntary medical male circumcision, a procedure the World Health Organization recognizes as a key tool in preventing HIV and AIDS.