'If you weren't transgender...you didn't qualify': Trump slams CHIPS Act with unfounded hiring claim

President Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted transgender people and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion practices throughout his second term, and he did so again on Wednesday at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, training his sights on the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) and Science Act. "...the standards were so high. If you weren't transgender, as an example, you didn't qualify," he said.

Trump began his diatribe against the CHIPS Act by asserting that none of the companies that received funding under the scheme knew what to do with it. "We have this ridiculous CHIPS Act. They say they're going to build. Nobody knew what to do with it. So they get the money, they hire—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," he said.

The 80-year-old went on to call the Biden administration "those idiots that almost destroyed our country." Former President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS Act into law in August 2022, seeking to bring microchip manufacturing back to the U.S. after decades of the industry moving offshore. The law set aside $53 billion in federal incentives for domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research. There is no mention of any such requirement in the act's text—a discrepancy also flagged by Community Notes on X.

The 2026 summit brought together America's prominent defense and technology leaders, including senior military commanders, industry CEOs, investors, innovators, workforce developers and entrepreneurs, to strengthen the country's defense industrial base. But Trump, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Republican Pennsylvania Sen. David McCormick, spent little time discussing battlefield issues, according to the Associated Press.

This is not the first time Trump has gone after the transgender community, doubling down on his attacks in his primetime speech Thursday. "We had transgender for everybody, men in women's sports, crime ravaging our cities, and the whole world was laughing at us as a nation, but not anymore. Two years ago, our country was dead. Now, we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. America is respected like we have never been respected before," he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently affirmed Trump's push to ban transgender athletes from competing in women's sports after it upheld Idaho and West Virginia laws banning transgender athletes from women's sports. In a 6-3 ruling, the court held that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause allow states to reserve women's and girls' sports for biological females. The decision is a major win for advocates of the bans, including Trump, who hailed it as a "landmark victory" for common sense and biological reality.