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An attempt to advance a narrative about Elon Musk’s suggested sway over the next administration left CNN’s Dana Bash stumbling over the entrepreneur’s impact on transparency.

“…that — that can’t be true.”

(Video Credit: CNN)

Continued efforts to demonize President-elect Donald Trump have most recently found talking heads expounding on the perceived influence the world’s richest man has on the GOP leader.

Adding to selective outrage over political contributions, while ignoring the myriad high-dollar donors for Democrats, and strained allegations of “neo-Nazi” favor, a claim that Trump only spoke out on the government funding bill because of Musk, found Bash confronted with the impact of unrestricted social media.

During the late edition of CNN’s “State of the Union,” the host confronted Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty (R) on the notion that the legislation was sunk because X allowed for transparency by bringing up the timeline of Musk’s posts before the president-elect publicly opined on the issue.

“And then, senator, he posted 75 times over the course of that day attacking the bill, pressuring Republicans to tank it. Donald Trump didn’t weigh in publicly for more than 12 hours, and only did so after it was clear Republicans were following Elon Musk’s lead and turning on the bill,” said Bash who asked, “So, did Donald Trump only pick this fight because Elon Musk backed him into a corner?”

“I certainly wouldn’t say that,” replied the senator. “And I say thank God, Elon Musk bought Twitter because that’s the only way we would even know what’s in this bill. Otherwise, the conspiracy between the government and Twitter would have continued, and this would have all been covered up.”

“But the fact is that Elon Musk exposing this meant that every one of our offices was inundated with calls from our constituents,” he went on. “The American public wanted to see this change. Donald Trump was speaking on behalf of the American public. Again, he’s just the president-elect. The current president is AWOL. But Donald Trump stepped up and said, look, this is what needs to happen. And I think all of my constituents, all of my constituents were there. The calls, at least that I got in my office, Elon Musk’s transparency helped make that happen.”

Hagerty’s assertion that the democratic republic had operated as intended after voters contacted their representatives on how they wanted to address an issue found Bash attempting to downplay the impact that free speech on social media had.

“I understand it was quite large at the beginning, but to say that it was only Elon Musk that made people aware of what was in it, that — that can’t be true,” she asserted.

To that, the lawmaker replied, “No, I’m not saying it was only Elon Musk. We’re all struggling to read it — to digest an over 1,500-page bill that we were literally given just hours to comb through. I was working through it. My staff didn’t sleep the night before. It’s extraordinarily frustrating.”

“But I think the added weight of the American public understanding and the simple picture that Elon Musk put forward showing the size of the stack of what we originally presented, we started out with over 1,500 pages. We got it down to 120 pages,” argued Hagerty on the impact.

Bash’s apparent refusal to concede the impact Musk made went beyond himself to benefit average Americans having their voices heard found the billionaire earning praise while she was shamed.

Kevin Haggerty
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