Legacy media clash over Elon Musk's White House exit: Bias Breakdown

My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end

It was a limited time thing. It's 134 days, I believe, which ends in a few days

Elon Musk has left his advisor role at the White House. He helped start up the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE

in an effort to cut back government spending. And he's now hanging up one of his hats after his temporary role came to an end

You know, they say I wear a lot of hats. And as you can see, it's true

There's a political divide in opinion over the billionaire. And that's coming through in the mainstream news media's coverage of his departure

Welcome to Bias Breakdown. I'm your host, Cara Rucker. Let's roll the open

Join Straight Arrow News. See the slant. Avoid the bias. When others skew the facts, we give you the truth down the center

Welcome to Bias Breakdown. When it's all said and done, he may have cost more than he saved, and he was supposed to be Mr. Savings

Musk did more in 130 days than politicians do in three decades. Elon's not perfect. Nobody is

But he's not a villain. He's a legend. Without sugarcoating the narratives, it comes down to this

Left-leaning news outlets are dumping on Doge and Elon, while right-leaning outlets are coming to his defense

Musk is now leaving in disgrace because lots of people felt that way when they were around him

He was wholesale rejected by about everyone. Even though our people are praising Elon Musk for putting us rather than an abusive government first

the swamp in Washington isn't at all pleased. I say this often in episodes because it's true

You're likely going to agree one way or the other based on your own personal opinions and political beliefs

Elon Musk is an ally of President Trump, the Republican Party's biggest donor in the last election cycle

So if you're a Democrat or lean left, then you're likely not a fan

And if you're a Republican or lean right, then he's on your political team, so to say

Same goes for the media, and that's what I'm here to talk about. Left and right news outlets can frame the facts to fit a political narrative based on their own biases

So let's talk about Elon's black eye, a report of alleged drug abuse

and a report of alleged deaths linked to Doge. Then, what you really need to know about Musk and his time at the White House

At Elon's farewell press conference Friday, he had a black eye and was asked about it

Yeah no I was just watching around with little X and I said go ahead punch me in the face And he did Left news outlets use this to help with how they summarize Musk time in Washington He has a black eye But don you think that black eye is also going to become a metaphor

for a thousand articles about his time in Washington? You know, this is a guy who was

able to conquer basically every industry that he set out to succeed in. And Washington, D.C

may be the only one where he's going away with a black eye. But with this Oval Office appearance ostensibly being his farewell after several months in Washington gutting the American government, everybody sort of had the same idea at the same time, right

The metaphors practically wrote themselves. You know, Musk has literal black eye and figurative black eye as he leaves

It was a theme of coverage only seen on left-leaning broadcast. It's not exactly a good look having a black eye

so it makes sense for it to be a talking point on networks with negative views and coverage of Musk

And if it were a political figure on the left with a black eye, then we potentially could have seen the same bias play out on the other side of the aisle

as one Democratic strategist on Fox News put it. If that was a Democratic doge master that showed up with a shiner

and there was a report that he did so much ketamine that he couldn't pee straight

You would be leading your show with it, 100%. A report of Elon Musk abusing drugs while under the political spotlight

broke the same day of his departure from left-leaning New York Times

That report of Musk juggling drugs on the campaign trail went through a left-leaning news echo chamber

while right-leaning news outlets give it no weight. Every day, unstable, lacking character, treating people badly

and acting like a poster child for someone who's on drugs. I mean, everybody in America said, is this guy on drugs

And I know that they're looking for some kind of scandal there, but I think it's a real nothing burger

And I don't think many people, quite frankly, care what Elon Musk does in his personal private time

Musk wrote on X, to be clear, I'm not taking drugs, and said the Times was lying, to which the Times PR account responded

saying Elon Musk is lashing out because he doesn't like the article

Despite the reporters interviewing a dozen people, obtaining private text, legal documents, and photographic evidence. Truth is, it's a he said

she said. Musk says didn't happen. The Times doubled down saying yes, it did. And while the

Times claims to have text and photographic evidence the public hasn seen it Let talk about another report that is circulating and deemed as credible on the left and dismissed by the right From Boston University Impact Counter they claim over 300 deaths have been caused by funding discontinuation led by DOGE or 100 deaths per hour

Under methodology, Impact Counter explains mathematic formulas of how many people would hypothetically die given how many people typically die from a list of diseases each year and how much money it typically costs to save those lives, and then estimating the number of deaths tied to budget cuts

ysts and hosts on left-leaning networks put the blame on Musk. And for someone who says that he wants to repopulate the earth, I think it's interesting that there's now reporting that the doge cuts to USAID have led to the deaths of 300,000 children around there

You add them all up, that's 300,000 dead and we're four months in. By taking away that agency and being at least semi-responsible for the deaths of probably by the end of this hundreds of thousands of millions of people, that's Elon Musk's legacy

But right-leaning networks slammed the reports and the left's coverage. We have videos of mass graves

The report isn't based on actual deaths. It's based on a formula

And that is something left outlets largely left out. It's a form of media bias by omission

But here's something I really want to talk about, the point I want to get across in today's segment

There's a lot of heightened feelings around Elon Musk. Left outlets blame Musk for Doge's cuts, while right outlets hail him for Doge's savings

He's the face of Doge. He's the Doge father. And while in his government special employee position, he was making calls on what Doge

should target and what Doge should slash, really Elon Musk cannot be credited with or blamed

for actions by Doge. Here's why. It something I learned doing research for a story a while back and maybe you even saw that story But Elon Musk did not have the final say so doge cuts It wasn his hand on the button to fire these employees or slash this federal program In his

position as an advisor, he advised department heads on where he believed government waste was

within their agencies. Reports of him gutting this department or saving billions in this other

department are technically inaccurate because he didn't have that authority in this role

He could advise agencies. And then it was that cabinet head's decision whether or not to implement

his suggestions. Now, most government heads did listen because it's an aligned goal of the Trump

administration to cut government waste and the president himself directed them to prioritize

doge cuts. But I think it's a slight but important distinguisher for you to know that hasn't been

reported as clearly by either political side of the news media because it was easier to vilify

Musk or hail him as a legend, putting the credit or the blame solely on him. But ultimately

his time at the White House was spent seeking out waste and making recommendations. And while

he left the White House, the door is open for Musk to still advise the president, and Doge is

here to stay. I think the Doge team is doing an incredible job. They're going to continue doing

an incredible job, and I'll continue to be visiting here and be a friend and advisor to

the president, and I look forward to times being back in this amazing room

podcast, among other podcast platforms you see there, or on the SAN mobile app if that's easier

for you. Doge is a big topic, and honestly, this report just scratched the surface. There's also

different reports on how much money Doge has saved. Doge and right-leaning outlets are reporting

$170 billion in savings so far. Left-leaning outlets report the number to be much lower than

that. But this story was meant to be more Musk-centric since he bid farewell to his White

House advisor position. That's not to say Doge's bookkeeping won't be the focus of a future episode

of Bias Breakdown. Thanks for watching this week's story and thanks to my team

Ian Kennedy and Allie Caldwell, for their editing and graphic support. We'll see you next time