CNN’s Jake Tapper And Daniel Dale Torpedo Trump-Musk Oval Office Rants: ‘Not Exactly Strict Adherers To The Truth’
CNN anchor Jake Tapper and fact-checker Daniel Dale roasted President Donald Trump and DOGE czar Elon Musk for a spray of false claims during an Oval Office photo op.
Trump and Musk spoke to reporters for about half an hour after Trump signed executive orders in the Oval Office Tuesday — joined by Elon’s son X Musk. Musk stood at Trump’s right while Trump sat at the Resolute Desk — the same one Musk was pictured at on a recent Time Magazine cover.
Musk was peppered with questions about his bulldozing of government agencies, his potential conflicts of interest, the false claims he has spread, and more.
On Tuesday’s edition of CNN’s The Lead, Tapper joked that the pair are “not necessarily strict adherers to truth” as he and Dale dissected the false or evidence-free claims that were made at that press event:
TAPPER: Let’s bring in CNN’s Daniel Dale for a fact check.
Daniel, two guys there that are not necessarily strict adherers to truth. What stood out to you in the remarks from both President Trump and Elon Musk?
DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Three quick points, Jake. Number one, I’m with you. We heard a lot of big startling claims about kickbacks, massive corruption. I’m not saying none of this happened, but we have not seen the evidence for it.
What we have largely seen evidence for is that there are certain contracts and certain spending at the federal government that Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk don’t like. That is what has largely been canceled so far. That is what largely we’re seeing from DOGE. So in terms of these claims about criminality, essentially, I think we need to wait and see.
Number two, on the question of transparency, I think you made some good points. Mr. Musk is certainly tweeting a lot about their activities or posting on X, as he would say, but also in other respects he has not been transparent. For example, there was an X user who posted the names of some of the people working with this DOGE team. He responded that you have committed a crime, so merely disclosing who is working with him. He’s alleging wrongly is a crime.
And then number three, I thought there was a remarkable moment when a journalist there raised this point about the so-called 50 million in condoms to Gaza, he said. Musk said, look, some of what I say is wrong.
Yes, all of us get some things wrong sometimes. But this has been not only repeated by the president, but turned into 100 million in condoms for Hamas, so turn into an even more incendiary claim. Mr. Musk has not corrected it, as far as I can tell, until today.
TAPPER: Well, you know, it’s interesting you say that, Daniel, because the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Brian Mast, Congressman Brian Mast, was on the show last week and said that there were $15 million in condoms given to the Taliban.
And I said, okay, can you provide the information? His office sent us a link to a “Washington Examiner” story that said there was $15 million in birth control given to Afghans — Afghans, and that did include condoms that also included birth control pills, oral contraception.
That wasn’t given to the Taliban. It was given to the Afghan people. And people can say whether or not the United States should be in the business of providing birth control to other countries. But it’s not $15 million in condoms given to Taliban. I mean, it’s — it’s not accurate.
DALE: Right.
TAPPER: So anyway, Daniel Dale, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Watch above via CNN’s The Lead.
