Given the chaos and controversies surrounding the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” the White House appears predictably eager to defend the initiative and point to its merits. That’s not going especially well.

On the contrary, Donald Trump and his team have begun relying on made-up stuff as part of their case.

One of the first signs of trouble came to the fore last week, when the president, his surrogates and even some congressional Republicans insisted that Elon Musk and his DOGE team had uncovered proof of obvious waste: $50 million in taxpayer money, they claimed, funded condoms in Gaza.

It didn’t take long, however, before reality intervened and the claim was discredited. (After the nonsense was exposed, Trump claimed that it was actually $100 million going toward condoms in Gaza, inflating the lie on a whim.)

Undeterred, as the administration’s campaign against the U.S. Agency for International Development intensified, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters this week that USAID spent $70,000 on a production of a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 on a transgender opera in Colombia and $32,000 on a transgender comic book in Peru. She called the expenditures “crap.”

In reality, USAID hadn’t spent any money on any of these things.

But Elon Musk, the White House, GOP elected officials and assorted far-right media personalities appeared especially excited this week about the idea that USAID gave money to Politico, a prominent domestic media outlet. Leavitt, for example, told reporters during a press brief that she’d been “made aware that USAID has funded media outlets like Politico. I can confirm that more than $8 million that has gone to subsidizing subscriptions will no longer be happening.”

Soon after, the president himself amplified the claim online in his usual, understated way. Trump’s message, posted to his social media platform, read in its entirety:

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LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A “PAYOFF” FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS. THE LEFT WING “RAG,” KNOWN AS “POLITICO,” SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000. Did the New York Times receive money??? Who else did??? THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! THE DEMOCRATS CAN’T HIDE FROM THIS ONE. TOO BIG, TOO DIRTY!

Let’s quickly review all of the many absurdities in the Republican’s missive:

• There’s literally no evidence of billions of dollars being “stolen” (or as Trump wrote, “stollen”) from USAID.
• The modest amount of money that went to Politico paid for subscriptions.
• There were no media “payoffs,” politically motivated or otherwise.
• Politico didn’t receive $8 million, and it’s not even a little “left wing.”
• The New York Times was one of many other publications that received money, which is not at all interesting because newspaper subscriptions are quite common.
• No one with reading comprehension skills could see this as “dirty” or a “scandal.”

In other words, Trump, true to form, managed to publish a hysterical screed without getting any details right.

In a follow-up message, the president went on to suggest that government agencies paying for media subscriptions is “illegal,” reinforcing suspicions that the Republican uses the word “illegal” to mean “stuff I dislike.”

The unanswered question, meanwhile, is simple: If the “DOGE” endeavor is working, why can’t the White House simply tell the truth?