Did Trump confuse 'transistor' with 'transgender' in speech criticizing CHIPS Act? We examined footage

A rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump confused the terms "transistor" and "transgender" as he criticized the CHIPS and Science Act — a 2022 bipartisan federal law designed to support the production of semiconductors in the U.S. — spread in July 2026.

Several social media posts made the claim on Facebook and X. All the posts included a video clip of Trump speaking, with one of them adding that "the difference" between transistors and transgender people "has been extensively documented" (archived): 

Apparently referring to the eligibility criteria to benefit from the CHIPS program, Trump supposedly said in the video, "the standards were so high. If you weren't transgender, as an example, uh you didn't qualify. So, they get the money, they hired, they look all over for transgender people to run the company, large portions. They couldn't find them."

Several Snopes readers searched the website and emailed, seeking confirmation that Trump had confused "transistor" with "transgender." 

While the video is authentic and Trump made the false assertion about eligibility during a July 15, 2026, roundtable on defense and innovation in Pennsylvania, it's not clear that he mistook "transistor" for "transgender." 

We reached out to the White House seeking clarifications and we will update this report should they respond. 

Trump falsely asserted the CHIPS Act benefited trans people

On July 15, 2026, Trump attended a roundtable on defense and innovation, which the White House streamed live on YouTube:

As he spoke, Trump criticized the CHIPS Act and falsely asserted that it benefited transgender people (at the 19:58 mark in the video):

We had this ridiculous CHIPS Act where you give billions of dollars to a company and they didn't even know what the hell to do with it. You give them billions of dollar, they say they're going to build. Nobody knew what to do it. 

And of course the standards were so high. If you weren't transgender, as an example, you didn't qualify. So they get the money, they're hired, they look all over for transgender people to run the company, large portions, they couldn't find them. They weren't into the chip-making business, I guess, right? They had other things on their mind. 

But this was the Biden fools, those idiots that almost destroyed our country. But we're also reasserting the fundamental truth: to be a strong nation, you must be a manufacturing nation, of manufacturing jobs.

(Though Trump spoke of the CHIPS Act in the past tense, the law is still in effect as of this writing.)

The CHIPS Act does not include provisions about trans people

A review of the text of the CHIPS Act turned up no provisions regarding trans people (or transistors, for that matter). Instead, the program supports companies that manufacture semiconductors in the U.S., as well as domestic microelectronics research by universities, nonprofit organizations and other research groups. The law also seeks to support other domestic scientific research to protect national security interests. It received bipartisan support in the Senate and the House of Representatives when it passed in 2022.

This was not the first time Trump appeared to falsely suggest piece of legislation included provisions on transgender people. For example in March 2026, Snopes examined his insistence that the SAVE America Act bill included a ban on on "men in women's sports" and "transgender mutilation surgery for children."

Similarly, it would not be the first time people on the internet speculated Trump had confused an unrelated term to mean "transgender." In March 2025, Trump said in the first address to Congress of his second term that his new administration had identified wasteful spending from the previous administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat. The waste, according to Trump, included "$8 million for making mice transgender." People on social media said he had intended to say "transgenic" mice — genetically modified rodents used in biomedical research.

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