During the Thursday, December 19 broadcast of CNN’s “Newsroom” program, host Jim Acosta and former CNN personality Brian Stelter had a bit of a meltdown about Elon Musk’s involvement in the conservative fight against the Uniparty Continuing Resolutions, declaring that there are “concerns” about Elon’s involvement given his wealth.
As background, before Elon and Trump got involved in putting an end to it, Speaker Mike Johnson and most House Republicans were ready to go along with a nearly 1500-page-long spending package that included a great deal of leftist pork, conservatives alleged. Acosta and Stelter alleged that Elon was speaking “misinformation” in his opposition to the bill.
Acosta, kicking off the angry denunciation of Elon, said that “Americans” have “new concerns” about Elon given this showing of what influence he might have with President-elect Donald Trump. He said, “As Americans face the threat of a government shutdown, there are new concerns about Elon Musk’s growing influence over Donald Trump.”
Continuing, Acosta noted that Elon had been involved in instigating the pushback to the spending package, saying, “The world’s richest man kicked off the drama with one tweet early yesterday morning, saying the bipartisan deal to keep the government running should not pass. More than 13 hours later, the president elect joined him, warning any Republican who supported the deal would be primaried.”
Brian Stelter agreed, breathlessly alleging that Elon’s expressed opposition to the spending bill was “misleading or outright false,” telling Acosta and CNN viewers, “So much of what Musk was posting on X yesterday about this spending bill was either misleading or outright false. He was referring to this bill being criminal.”
Building on that, Stelter alleged that Musk is spreading “misinformation” and declared, facilely, that spending provisions and support for them can’t be “criminal” because it’s a “legal piece of paper.” He said, “It’s literally a legal piece of paper that he’s calling criminal. There’s a lot of misinformation that Musk is spreading about this spending bill. I think that’s a big part of the story here.”
Stelter then pointed to the much-dislike Rep. Dan Crenshaw as evidence for his claim, saying, “By the way, it’s not just me saying it. Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican lawmaker, tweeted to Musk last night and said, ‘I love you, Elon, but you need to take five seconds to check your sources before highlighting bottom feeders, looking for clicks.’ You know, Musk likes to post anonymous accounts that are spreading misinformation.”
Acosta joined in, disagreeing with Musk’s take on pay raises for Congress and attacking it as “fake news,” saying, “Yeah, I mean, for all the talk of calling people fake news and so on, we put this up on screen. He says that the bill contained a 40% pay increase for members of Congress. I don’t know if we can put that up there or not. There’s a cost of living increase in it, but nothing as high as what he said. So to Dan Crenshaw’s point Elon Musk is spreading fake news on this. He is fake news.”
Watch them here:
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