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As CNN Continues to Whine About Elon Musk, Scott Jennings, Bill Hagerty Come Armed With Key Points

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  December 23, 2024 7:30 PM

Congress managed to avoid a government shutdown, but it wasn't before the House put out a particularly problematic bill, to the tune of a bill that was over 1,500 pages long. Elon Musk took to X to not only use his platform to speak out against the continuing resolution (CR), but to amplify others who did. It was a kind of influence liberals have not been able to handle. CNN has brought up such a narrative multiple times, and each time, as Townhall has been covering, Scott Jennings has been there to bring up some hard truths. This included on Sunday's episode of "State of the Union."

During the panel discussion, host Dana Bash brought up how Democrats have claimed that Musk is a "co-president," or will really be the one to be president, rather than President-elect Donald Trump. As Bash asked Jennings, "Is this going to wear thin with Donald Trump soon?"

"I don't think so. I mean, look, they appear to be getting along well. Musk was very instrumental in his victory," Jennings pointed out. He also made another key reminder about Democrats, adding, "and I hear Democrats criticizing the idea that we have unelected people with too much influence over the government." Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been a particular noteworthy offender of such a tactic, as she also rants and raves about Musk's supposed conflicts of interests. 

"I invite them to pick up The Wall Street Journal from this week and find out that unelected people have been running the government for the last four years," Jennings also shared, something he's brought up before as well, ever since the report was published last Wednesday. The report confirmed what we knew all along, that President Joe Biden's mental faculties were rapidly declining, and White House aides were forced to adapt. 

"I hear Democrats criticizing the influence of billionaires on our politics, when you have got this Soros punk running around collecting Democrat politicians like my kids collect Pokemon cards. So, I think all the criticism of Musk coming from the left is totally hypocritical, totally over the top. And he is doing something interesting, bringing some transparency to the federal government. It's not a terrible fact," Jennings continued to illustrate. 

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Jennings managed to put an amusing new spin on such arguments, not just to do with Pokemon cards, but also his reference to Alex Soros, who has indeed been photographed with Democratic politicians, including with Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) before the 2024 election. 

Even Karen Finney, who has memorably sparred with Jennings before, agreed with him this time, conceding during a back and forth with other panelists that "Scott's right," acknowledging that "those have been the talking points."

Musk himself took notice of and shared the clip of such a panel discussion from his X account. 

This wasn't the only part of the program where Musk came up, though. Earlier, Bash spoke with Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to ask about Musk's role. Hagerty had praised Musk's "transparency" in calling out what was in the bill.

"And Elon Musk, using the tool of Twitter, brought transparency to the entirety of it. The American public were shocked. We are always shocked when we see these types of monstrosities at the last minute that haven't been properly vetted," he aptly pointed out.

Bash decided to focus on such a point and bizarrely harp on how Musk posted at 4:15am on Wednesday morning that "This bill should not pass," though Musk, as she herself acknowledged, posted several times beyond that about the bill. 

As she brought up the timeline of when Trump himself spoke out and took issue with the bill, Bash asked Hagerty, "did Donald Trump only pick this fight because Elon Musk backed him into a corner?"

"I certainly wouldn't say that," Hagerty replied. "And I say, thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter, because that's the only way we'd 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," he argued. "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."

Hagerty also reminded that Trump is not yet actually in office, though Biden "is AWOL." Trump, however, still rose to the occasion while Biden wouldn't speak to the American people on the bill, a move that White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to during Friday's press briefing by going with her oft-used tactic of blaming Republicans. "Donald Trump stepped up and said, look, this is what needs to happen. And I think all of my constituents were there--or the calls at least that I got in my office. Elon Musk's transparency helped make that happen," Hagerty continued. Jennings has also stressed it wasn't only just Musk and his posts over X. 

"Well, I think, as a senator voting, I presume that you do your best to read the bills that you're voting on. 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 can't be true," Bash snootily claimed, downplaying the monstrosity of a CR. 

"I'm not saying it was only Elon Musk. We were all struggling to read it, to digest an over-1,500-page bill that we were literally given just hours to comb through," Hagerty responded. "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."

Bash also brought up how "Democrats are mockingly suggesting that Elon Musk is the one calling the shots, questioning who the president-elect really is," with Hagerty offering that "President Trump is clearly the leader. He's going to be the leader of the free world in 30 days. In fact, he's already the leader if you look at what's happening, people coming to see him in Mar-a- Lago, the changes that have taken place, the European Union saying maybe they're going to go ahead now and supplant Russian LNG with U.S. LNG, the U.K. stepping up its defense budget in advance of President Trump coming into office." He again brought up how Biden "has gone AWOL."

As Bash asked if Hagerty was "comfortable with Elon Musk's role," Hagerty made clear that "media speculation, what the Democrats might say to try to get under people's skin doesn't bother me a bit." He also noted he's "appreciative of the fact that President Trump has that type of talent available to advise him."