Appearing on CNN with Dana Bash, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) sent Bash into a tailspin by noting the benefits provided to Americans, including legislators like him, of Elon Musk’s purchase of X (formerly Twitter), saying that it was thanks to X that he and others were able to figure out all the ridiculous provisions of the 1500+ page spending bill that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson almost passed.
The spat began when back, on the Sunday, December 22 broadcast of her “State of the Union” show, commenting on Elon’s opposition to the spending bill. She said, “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 Musk’s lead and turning on the bill.” She then asked, “So did Donald Trump only pick this fight because Elon Musk backed him into a corner?”
Hagerty told her, getting to his praise about Elon, “I certainly wouldn’t say that. 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.”
Continuing, he said, “But the fact is that Elon Musk exposing this meant that every one of our offices was inundated with calls from our constituents. 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.'”
He then reiterated his point about Elon providing enough transparency through his posting on X and general protection of free speech on X allowing that increased scrutiny of the bill to happen. He said, “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.”
Bash got very annoyed with Hagerty for that praise of Elon, saying it just can’t be true that it was thanks to him that such transparency was provided to the public. She snapped, “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.”
Hagerty fired back by noting the ridiculously short period of time legislators were given to examine the massive bill, saying, “No, I’m not saying it was only Elon Musk. We’re all struggling to read it to digest an over 1500 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.”
Concluding, he noted that the scrutiny worked and that it was thanks to Elon’s X that the bill was trimmed down so much. He said, “But I think the added weight of the American public understanding and simple picture that Elon Musk put forward showing the size of the stack of what we originally presented, we started out with over 1500 pages. We got it down to 120 pages.”
Watch Hagerty here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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