Taxpayers in Pennsylvania continue to pay for transgender procedures on children despite actions from the Trump administration to protect them from the life-altering procedures, according to government data shared with The Daily Wire. 

Pennsylvania funding for the procedures has continued to surge, even with President Donald Trump’s executive actions to cut funding for entities that promote the procedures on kids. From January to September 18, 2025, Pennsylvania has shelled out nearly $3 million in funding for the procedures, according to data obtained by the Pennsylvania Family Institute. 

The spending numbers come from “Right to Know” requests filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Human Services by Dan Bartkowiak, the chief strategy officer at the Pennsylvania Family Institute. He said that there should be a drop in funding due to the Trump administration’s actions. 

“So are other entities doing this? 
Will we see the drop?” he said. “The assumption would be, it’s going to be less than last year’s total.” 

In 2015, Pennsylvania’s spending on “sex reassignment and transition-related services and drugs” for children and young adults surged from $74,000 per year to over $5 million in 2024. In total, the commonwealth has spent over $31 million on transgender procedures on 6,229 patients between the ages of 5 and 18 since 2015.

Despite increasing backlash from lawmakers and parents about the dangers of the procedures, the spending hasn’t appeared to slow down.

How young were the patients? According to the data, there were 133 children last year between the ages of 6 and 12 who received transgender procedures. 

PA Family Institute.

One of the hospitals that has performed transgender procedures on kids, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is currently fighting the Trump administration’s efforts to gain data on the use of puberty blockers. They sued to block the Justice Department’s efforts to investigate the hospital. 

From January until September 18, $2,925,736 in Pennsylvania Medical Assistance has gone toward the procedures through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), fee-for-service claims, physical health paid encounters, and behavioral health paid encounters, according to the data. 

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Bartkowiak flagged the increasing amount of CHIP funds going toward the procedures, rising from just over $15,000 in 2015 to over $1,114,367 in 2024. Already over $487,00 in CHIP funding has been spent on the procedures. CHIP is Pennsylvania’s program for uninsured kids and teenagers who aren’t eligible for Medicaid. 

The Pennsylvania Department of Health and Human Services told The Daily Wire that it is “required to follow all applicable federal and state Medicaid rules and covers services related to gender transition that otherwise fall within a beneficiary’s scope of covered Medicaid benefits, such as physician’s services, inpatient and outpatient hospital services, behavioral health services, and prescribed drugs when medically necessary.”

It added that relies on the guidance from the radical World Professional Association for Transgender Health “in determining medical necessity for gender-affirming health care services.”

Senator Judy Ward, a Pennsylvania Republican, is attempting to stop taxpayer funding of the procedures and protect kids from gender surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers. In June, she introduced the “Do No Harm Act” to shield kids from the procedures. 

“It’s just a horrible, horrible thing, and we’re doing it to children,” Ward told The Daily Wire of the transgender procedures. “It is child abuse [in] every sense of the word.”

Ward did not believe that Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro would sign the legislation if it passed the Republican-controlled Senate and managed to get across the finish line in the Democrat-run House. Under Shapiro, $14 million has been spent on the procedures. Shapiro did not respond to a request for whether he would sign Ward’s legislation. 

She said that more awareness is needed to make Pennsylvanians aware of where their hard-earned money is going.

As a registered nurse, Ward said that health professionals were supposed to help people, not push them into experimental treatments. 

“We are to help people to heal and to be the best person that they can be physically, mentally, spiritually, even, and in doing this sort of care is not helping people,” she said. “I think it’s taking advantage of someone who is confused.”

Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak details his reporting on governmental waste and fraud before Congress, controversy swirls around Zohran Mamdani’s administration-to-be, and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) gives us an inside look at Minnesota’s fraud scandal.

It’s Thursday, December 11, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the video version can be seen on The Daily Wire:

Senate Digs Into DEI Fraud

Topline: The Senate is investigating a multi-billion-dollar DEI fraud scheme, as the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, sending markets soaring. 

Senate drills into DEI: The Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program was initially intended to offer support for those deemed “socially and economically disadvantaged.” Under the Biden administration, federal agencies were instructed to ensure 15% of all contracts were given to businesses operated by minorities or women, meaning billions of taxpayer dollars were awarded based on race and gender in what became one of the largest DEI programs in the country.

Not only was the program intentionally excluding people based on race, but it was also ripe with fraud. Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak documented countless cases in which minority business owners would win a contract, then outsource all the work to non-minority-owned businesses, pocketing most of the money in the process.

On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Small Business held a hearing to address the fraud, and Rosiak testified about his findings.

“8A creates a random group of influence peddlers who like lobbyists, get rich by selling their access to government insiders to the benefit of big businesses, while driving up the cost for all of us. This is the kind of thing people hate about Washington. You owe it to voters to end this program,” said Rosiak.

Interest rates: On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Board voted to cut interest rates by a quarter point to the 3.5%-3.75% range. That means rates have now come down by nearly 2% over the last year and a half. They’re now at their lowest point in more than three years.

There was not unanimous agreement from the voting members of the Fed Board. For the first time in six years, three of the twelve officials cast dissenting votes, with two saying cuts weren’t needed, and one saying the cut should be bigger.

Essentially, the disagreement stems from whether the Fed should prioritize the labor market, which has slowed significantly, or inflation, which remains well above the target range of 2%. Typically, rates are raised when inflation is high, and lowered when the labor market is cool. Ultimately, the Fed Board, led by Chair Jerome Powell, viewed the labor market as a more pressing matter, and said these cuts would help with hiring and unemployment. 

Mamdani’s Rule Already Stirring Controversy

Topline: As New York City braces for a seismic shift in leadership with democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani taking the helm as mayor next month, a wave of controversy is erupting over his early moves.

Many political pundits, particularly those on the Right, warned that Mamdani would endanger public safety and undermine law enforcement, and now they say they’re seeing evidence for these claims even before he has officially taken office.

One of the most talked-about moves came just days ago, when Mamdani put out a video addressed to immigrants living in New York City. In it, he told viewers they have the right to “stand up to ICE.”

Critics argue this goes beyond merely explaining constitutional rights. Some say it could embolden illegal aliens, even those with criminal records, to resist or evade lawful ICE action.

Mamdani’s transition: The transition team has been an explosive topic as Mamdani has tapped Mysonne Linen to be a key voice on justice reform on the “Committee on the Criminal Legal System.”

Linen was once a rising hip-hop star signed to Def Jam. But in 1999, he was convicted of two armed robberies where he held up taxi drivers at gunpoint. He served seven years and was paroled in 2006.

He then rebranded as a Black Lives Matter activist and co-founded Until Freedom with Linda Sarsour, a controversial pro-Palestinian activist who has also served as a Mamdani advisor.

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The choice has driven law enforcement apoplectic. Correction officers’ union head Benny Boscio called it “disheartening and deeply disturbing.” Retired NYPD brass such as John Chell see a pattern with Mamdani filling his team with anti-cop firebrands like black nationalist Lumumba Bandele, defund-the-police guru Alex Vitale, and others.

Mamdani says he just wants a broad array of “experiences and analysis” to draw from.

What’s Behind The Massive Somali Fraud Scandal?

Topline: The sweeping fraud allegations coming out of Minnesota have sparked demands for more investigations and further action from political leaders in D.C. to protect against billions more in taxpayer dollars getting funneled into the hands of fraudsters. Morning Wire spoke with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota’s 6th congressional district, about the scandal. (This interview has been lightly edited.)

Morning Wire: We have this massive fraud scandal continuing to unravel this week. What do you believe were the most critical oversight failures within the Walz administration? And how should Minnesota restructure its safeguards to prevent this from happening again?

Emmer: The first thing you do is you got to get rid of [Minnesota Democratic Governor] Tim Walz and [Minnesota Attorney General] Keith Ellison and [Congresswoman] Ilhan Omar. I mean, there’s your biggest structural problem right there. Let me put some context around this for your viewers, your listeners. … The facts are this: today, there are roughly 80,000 Somali immigrants that are living in Minnesota. The vast majority of them live in Minneapolis or Hennepin County–an area called Cedar-Riverside. … Tim Walz and Keith Ellison cannot get votes in greater Minnesota. Think about this: in the last election, Tim Walz outspent the Republican candidates $15 million to $1.7 million, and he won with 52%, just over 52% of the vote. If you look a little deeper, we have 87 counties. Tim Walz only won the 13 metro counties. We’ll go a little farther. If you look at the 74 counties that he lost, he got 37% of the vote, including losing his former congressional seat by eight points. So, what is this about? This is about the fact that when he and Keith Ellison took office, Keith Ellison instantly set up a policy in his attorney general’s office that required his approval before any further investigations into fraud could go forward. Guess what? He’s never approved one of them. … And it’s not that all Somali immigrants are bad. It just so happens that 90% of the crimes we’re talking about have been committed by people that are in the Somali community. And by the way, they have been sending millions back to Somalia into the hands of Al-Shabaab, a known terrorist group. So, if you look at Keith Ellison, he won by a little less than one point in his last election. What is this all about? This is all about them getting re-elected. They need that 60 to 80,000 Somali population. They need them to be voting for them. That’s what this is all about.

Morning Wire: You mentioned the word accountability. We do have some individual actors being convicted, but what about on the government level? What about some of these officials? Is there any action being taken to hold people accountable if they looked the other way knowingly? What investigations are going on with that, and what do you hope to see pursued?

Emmer: Look, I think our U.S. Justice Department is starting to pick up where Minnesota should have been involved investigating not only the fraud but who might have been not just incompetent but actively engaged in the fraud because they should be criminally held, criminally responsible. You’ve got Dr. Oz, who’s investigating a fraud on the Medicaid program. You’ve got Kelly Loeffler, who’s investigating fraud in the SBA program. You got Kash Patel, who’s busy with his team investigating Somali gangs that have frankly been running rampant in the Twin Cities committing crimes and no one will hold them accountable for it.