‘Lying Hacks’: White House Drops Scathing Fact Check on Outlets Reporting Elon Musk Threatened Entitlements

The Trump White House’s rapid response team on Tuesday hit Bloomberg News with a scathing fact check about some of Elon Musk’s comments from a Fox Business interview on Monday. CNN also hosted a panel discussion that clarified Musk’s remarks, while calling them vague and contradictory.

Bloomberg tweeted its report and added, “Elon Musk called entitlement spending — benefits including Social Security and Medicare — key targets for cuts, which contradicts President Donald Trump’s pledge to not touch those programs.”

The White House account hit back, “Lying hacks. He was talking about waste, fraud, and abuse — of which there is $500+ billion every year. This is why the Fake News is less popular than a root canal. All you do is LIE.”

Bloomberg’s report quoted Musk’s comments in the interview and added:

Musk, who is guiding President Donald Trump’s government downsizing effort, said Monday that entitlements with annual budgets of hundreds of billions of dollars were ripe for steep reductions. He made unproven claims about benefits, including that Democrats use them to “attract and retain illegal immigrants by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters.” He also said there are widespread payments to dead people.

“The waste report in entitlement spending, you know, which is all of the, which is most of the federal spending is entitlements,” Musk said in an interview with Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow. “So that’s like the big one to eliminate, that’s the sort of half trillion maybe $600, $700 billion a year.”

CNN’s Inside Politics panel took up the discussion later in the day as well and noted that while Musk’s comments were vague, it did on the whole appear he was talking about cutting waste in entitlements, not the actual programs themselves. The panelists, also noted however, that only actual cuts in the programs could get to the numbers Musk was talking about. Many other outlets, similar to Bloomberg, ran reports saying Musk raised the idea of cutting entitlements.

CNN played some of the interview in which Musk said, “I’m just here trying to make government more efficient. Eliminate waste and fraud. The waste import in entitlement spending, which is all of the which is most of the federal spending, is entitlements. So that that’s that’s like the big one to eliminate. You know, that’s the sort of half trillion maybe 600, 700 billion per year.”

Anchor Dana Bash then said, “My panel is back. And I just want to underscore and if you listen to the whole thing as I did, it did sound like he was talking about what he calls ‘waste and fraud’ in those entitlement programs, but that’s not how he said it.”

“And we all know how things are clipped and used, and you could be sure that they’re going to be used by Democrats. They already are being used by Democrats. Regardless, the key is that the president has said over and over again, there will be no cuts at all to those programs,” Bash added.

Jeff Zeleny jumped in, saying, “Right? Which creates an obvious political problem, but also a math problem. I mean, the reality here is if the Trump tax cuts are going to be extended, made permanent, enacted, they are going to have to make some cuts to some programs. And this is sort of saying the quiet part out loud, I guess, as we often say.”

“But the politics of this are so fascinating because at some point, if the budget situation is going to be reconciled. If Social Security will be there for people in the long term, there will have to be a discussion about doing something to preserve it,” he said, adding:

Donald Trump has not shown any sign of doing that for all is a disruption. Not that. Of course, Joe Biden did neither. Democrats and Republicans usually share a common bond on not wanting to touch Social Security. However, I don’t think that’s what Elon Musk was trying to do there. But he was pointing out this budget conundrum there. But that is going to be in every ad in the midterms, probably. And it’s hard to imagine. There’s no evidence there’s that much waste, fraud and abuse in the program.

CNN political director David Chalian then noted, “That’s the key. Which is like, yes, he said clearly. And I know the white House is pushing back and saying that’s in all their talking points. He’s talking about waste, fraud and abuse yet. So clearly you just played the soundbite. That’s what he was talking about.”

“But he said it makes up for maybe 600 to $700 billion in savings. If you if the government spends across Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, 2 trillion a year. You’re he’s making the argument that more than half of what is spent is waste, fraud and abuse, and that if you were to get rid of it, nothing would touch benefits more than half. That is just that is not math that adds up on anyone’s ledger, which is why the Democrats are seizing the opportunity,” Chalian concluded.

Watch the clip above via CNN.