In a contentious interview on CNN’s “NewsNight,” host Abby Phillip repeated baseless allegations that then-DOGE head Elon Musk had advocated for cuts to Social Security and Medicaid during a Green Bay town hall. Reacting to this absurd allegation, former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) refuted her claims and noted that Musk explicitly promised no cuts and focused solely on eliminating fraud.
As we reported, while speaking at the rally, Musk declared, “In fact, what we’re doing will help their benefits. Legitimate people, as a result of the work of DOGE, will receive more Social Security, not less.” Building on this point, he noted, “I want to emphasize that: as a result of the work of DOGE, legitimate recipients of Social Security will receive more money, not less money.”
In any case, Phillips began her remarks by mischaracterizing Musk’s intentions in a blatant manner. She claimed, “He came to the state, he talked about cutting Medicaid, Social Security through DOGE.” Clearly annoyed by this false claim, Walker interjected, “Actually, he said he would not cut Social Security, [that was] exactly what he said at his rally. …But I was there. I watched him.”
Backpedaling, the woke CNN host tried to recontextualize her words, saying, “Other people at his rallies, who work for DOGE, who worked for Elon Musk’s organization, talked about those issues.” Firing back, the former governor said, No, I was at the rally. Protestors said it, but nobody who was actually there did.”
Continuing his refutation, Walker said, “…That’s not at all what they said, if people believe that Medicaid and Medicare are going to be touched, that’s an…outright lie. What he talked about were people who were over 120 years old. Well, that’s clearly or not social security or medical [defunding].”
Continuing her disingenuous attempt to smear Trump, Phillips dug deeper. She whined, “The reason I brought this up is because the claim here is that there’s massive, widespread fraud, and that that’s all they’re addressing. That’s obviously a disputed claim, because it’s not true that 120-year-old people are getting Social Security checks. The checks stop at a certain point automatically.”
Battering the disgruntled anchor, Walker interjected, “Social security members get counted for various parts of the federal government….they don’t get a benefit directly to those people, but they count for money that gets allocated to different departments in their budget. They shouldn’t be if somebody is no longer alive, they should count.”
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Concluding his comments, he drew from his own political experience to contextualize these claims. Walker announced, early on in that recall process, that Time magazine called him “dead man Walker.” And the reason was because all the narratives coming out from the press, coming up from the left were about all these horrible, egregious things once we started to give examples of things we were actually doing, not the things the press said, not the things that so is our opponent said, but the things that we were actually doing when we ended up going before the voters in the final election and the recall, we actually won by more votes than we did.”
Watch the clip here:
Relating this story to the DOGE controversy, he noted, “So that, I think that what’s paramount for him or anyone else aligning with him, is keep giving actual examples of what they’re doing. Set aside things like social security. Make it abundantly clear that that’s not being touched. But if there are ways for honor, spell it out, make the case, and bring it to the voters.”
Featured image from embedded video