All Hail to the Nazi Elon Musk

A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 2/9/25

Last week the folks at Fox twisted themselves into knots to defend the actions of a maniacal corrupt billionaire hellbent on destroying entire government agencies without congressional oversight. They would never admit that their glorious leader, Donald J. Trump, was just a puppet for Elon Musk, a South African immigrant with extremist political leanings.

During one of the celebrations involved with Donald J. Trump’s inauguration Musk performed a hand gesture that looked suspiciously like a Nazi salute. When Musk was criticized for it instead of apologizing or clarifying what he meant he posted several inappropriate jokes about Nazis on his social media platform X.

Musk also enthusiastically backed an extremist staunchly anti-immigrant political party in Germany - the Alternative for Germany Party also known as AfD.

At a recent rally for AfD Musk said, in an apparent reference to the Nazi era, "frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that."

Musk has also publicly supported an extremist party in the UK. He’s also retweeted dozens of extremists on X (Twitter) as well as promoted several racist conspiracy theories. Openly pro-Nazi profiles have flourished on the X platform since Musk acquired it.

Of course, no one on Fox News brought up Musk’s extremist political leanings. His actions to slash and burn entire government agencies were framed as saving money for American tax payers.

Anyone watching Fox News exclusively last week might have missed out on stories about the Sudanese Civil War, the recent jobs report numbers or the increase in Black maternal mortality in the United States.

Shows I covered on Fox last week:

• Fox & Friends

• The Five

• Hannity

On Fox News - All Hail Elon Musk

Across the board the overpaid talking heads on Fox News expressed their love and devotion to Elon Musk the billionaire who donated $288 million to help get Donald J. Trump elected.

Trump rewarded his benefactor with a position to helm the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a task force set up by the executive branch.

What is DOGE?

• DOGE was created via an executive order on January 20, 2025

• It is a task force not an official government agency

• Elon Musk is a special government employee

  • This status means he is not required to file a public financial disclosure

  • He did not need to have a confirmation hearing by the House or Senate

  • This is no mechanism to prevent Musk from interfering with an agency that might benefit one of his six companies.

    • Musk is essentially policing himself.

    • Musk has billions of dollars of federal contracts with this companies SpaceX and Tesla.

• DOGE seems to mirror many of the proposals in Project 2025

• DOGE faces several lawsuits meant to limit its power

What the Folks at Fox News Said about Elon Musk and DOGE

The Murdoch owned propaganda machine treated Musk ask if he was some kind of warrior for government fiscal responsibility.

“Elon Musk dropped the DOGE Hammer, it,” said Jesse Watters on “The Five” January 3, 2025.

“President Trump and Elon Musk, who is serving as a great friend and ally to the president,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on “Hannity,” January 4, 2025.

“Just today, Elon Musk, he announced that he and President Trump are moving to dismantle USAID,” said Hannity on “Hannity,” January 4, 2025.

“Elon Musk doesn't have the authority. Well, sure, he has the authority. The president gave it to him,” said Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) on “Hannity,” January 4, 2025.

“There are freaking out more over Elon Musk or the DOGE cuts,” said Judge Jeanine Pirro on “The Five,” January 4, 2025.

“Thanks to Elon Musk and a small team of programmers well the jig is up the truth has been revealed . . .Elon Musk recently said when there is an important task, he will keep working until that job is done or die trying. . . Elon Musk uncovers massive government waste, fraud, abuse. . . .They hate Musk because he's exposing all of this misappropriation of your hard earned tax dollars . . . and you want to go to war, and you want to assassinate the character of Elon Musk, who's doing this for free,” said Sean Hannity on “Hannity,” January 4, 2025.

What Has DOGE Done So Far

• Attempted to completely destroy USAID

  • Musk called the agency a criminal organization

  • Musk requested to cut off all payments to USAID four days into the Trump admin.

  • President Trump issued an executive order suspending all U.S. foreign assistance.

  • The Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stop-work order for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

  • Dozens of USAID’s top leaders were placed on immediate leave

  • Hundreds of employees have been let go.

  • The USAID website was taken down

  • The sign on the building USAID operated in has been covered up.

• Offered a buyout to federal employees

• Ended all remote work for federal employees

• Claimed to have found fraud in various agencies - provided no evidence of fraud

• Musk has claimed payments from Health and Human Services to various groups around the country are illegal.

• DOGE employees gained access to the Department of Treasury payment systems

  • A federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing them.

The PBS News Hour Explains DOGE

On Wednesday PBS White House correspondent Laura Barrón-López explained DOGE.

“Elon Musk has said pretty publicly that his goal is to cut the deficit by stopping all of these improper payments, but he's made a lot of sweeping accusations without any evidence, calling USAID payments. They're just totally corrupt. He claims that the Bureau of Fiscal Services at Treasury Payments System, we're talking about that they've never stopped improper payments. Well, experts that we talked to say that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what those civil servants do. They're only responsible for cutting check because they are not responsible for vetting the payments at all. That happens at the agency level. And so there is a concern amongst government workers that Elon Musk is essentially claiming, and creating a head fake, saying that he, that there are all these improper payments going out of the federal government and claiming that essentially is a permission structure to then eventually stop payments,” said Barrón-López.

“And big picture here. We've seen Musk gain access, get control of these systems, help us understand the influence. What kind of a takeover is this we're seeing?” asked PBS News Hour co-anchor Amna Nawaz.

“Well, some of the experts that we talked to say that there's a name for this, and that name is State Capture. What is state capture? It's when a wealthy individual like Elon Musk is able to capture the mechanisms of government, gain control of them and then potentially manipulate them for their personal gain. And I spoke to Tyler McBrien, the managing editor at lawfare, who said that state capture practically works like this,” said Barrón-López.

Producers then cut to a pre-recorded interview with McBrien.

“It's rewriting the rules of the game. In terms of law and policy, it's capturing administrative decisions through appointments, budgeting, things like that, and then it's attacking these accountability structures. So the inspectors general, any sort of congressional oversight that should happen, the media as well, you see this now with, certain government agencies only reporting things on X and no longer issuing press releases,” said McBrien.

Barrón-López continued the discussion back in the PBS News Hour studio.

“You mentioned inspectors general. A lot of inspectors general are gone now because the Trump administration put them on leave. One of the only ways he said to stop, state capture is public awareness. And we saw today that there were a lot of protests and backlash. There across DC outside of the Capitol, hundreds protested the dismantling of USAID. And you hear them talking about, you know, chanting against Elon Musk. So that is potentially one of the only ways, that state capture could be stopped.”

How Jesse Watters Described USAID

On Tuesday on “The Five,” Jesse Watters had some odd ideas about what USAID does.

“I've been looking into USAID. It's a CIA cut out. It's basically like a dark money group that's been caught staging crews across Latin America. They've been kicked out of dozens of countries. They've been funding paramilitary operations, and they got caught. And this is basically a $40 billion slush fund for social justice warriors in permanent Washington to bribe people, staff, people at NGOs and just create hell. And they were probably going to launch the resistance against Trump second term through this little government super PAC.”

The Next Day Jesse Watters Claimed USAID was Turning the World Gay

On Wednesday on “The Five,” Watters had even crazier claims about the humanitarian aid agency.

“There's a theme here, and it looks like we're just trying to turn the world gay. Two million for sex changes in Guatemala. Gay rights in Jamaica. Gay rights. Trans rights in Uganda. Gay rights. Trans rights in the Western Balkans, in Vietnam and South Africa. But the more you think about it, it's actually trying to exploit the divisions in other countries to distract those other countries, to tear down traditional societies, to hurt the church, to hurt authority there. Because the main theme is you're basically just funding radical gay and trans rights movements in traditional societies. And what does that do to a traditional society?

It makes them all hate each other and fight each other and distract them so the United States can come in and exploit those divisions. It's like when we found out that the Russians were using their bots to exploit the Black Lives Matter movement and the radical trans movement, because what did we do? We just pointed our fingers at each other and we all hated each other. And then the Russians could use that for their own purposes.”

Jesse Watters was almost there when he mentioned Russian influence.

In September 2024 according to reporting by the Associated Press a criminal indictment issued by the Department of Justice alleged a media company linked to six conservative influencers — including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson — were secretly funded by Russian state media employees to create English-language videos that were “often consistent” with the Kremlin’s “interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions in order to weaken U.S. opposition” to Russian interests, like its war in Ukraine.

On PBS - How a Former Leader of USAID Described the Program

On Wednesday the PBS News Hour invited Andrew Natsios, a former administrator for USAID during the George W. Bush administration to talk about Musk’s attacks on the agency.

“It's not a takeover. It's a destruction of the agency. And I just want to say I've always had respect for Marco Rubio. And I don't now because of the nonsense he just said, AID was more aligned with President Bush's foreign policy than the State Department was, and sometimes even at the Defense Department was. . . Whenever a president takes office, they appoint people who agree with their point of view. When there's a Republican president, AID moves to the right when there's a Democratic president AID moved to the left, as it should . . . Our anti polio eradication program. It's not functioning right now because the missions are shut down. They're going to close all 80 missions. That's the stupidest idea I have ever heard,” said Natsios.

He then spoke about the private partnerships USAID forges with companies all over the world.

“AID is the most pro-business and pro-market of all aid agencies in the world. I can tell you that categorically. I'm a conservative Republican. I'm not a liberal. I and I've served in repeated Republican administrations. And the notion that the agency is a Marxist, they said they made the accusation was a Marxist organization. That's utterly ridiculous. I know we have private sector officers and we have a program that we started when I was administrator for the Global Development Alliance that brings in American businesses who contribute $6 billion a year to AID programs that we don't they don't give us the money, we don't give them. We jointly invest in the same projects, and we manage the projects for the businesses, the business community. The United States is very pro AID. They never bothered to ask the business community what they thought,” said Natsios.

What is USAID?

• USAID - The United States Agency for International Development is an independent agency of the United States government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance.

  • Contributes billions of dollars of humanitarian aid to over 177 countries

  • According to Pew Research the U.S. was on track to spend $58.4 billion on international assistance programs in the 2025 fiscal year

  • In 2023 USAID amounted to 1.2% of the total federal budget.

• What is USAID used for? (According to Pew Research - fiscal year 2023)

  • Disaster relief and other humanitarian aid ($15.6 billion, or 21.7% of total aid disbursements in fiscal 2023)

  • Efforts to solve the ongoing battle against HIV/AIDS ($10.6 billion, or 14.7%)

  • Combatting “pandemic influenza” and other emerging public health threats ($1.5 billion, or 2.0%)

  • Promoting democracy, good governance and the rule of law ($2.3 billion, or 3.2%)

  • “Multi-sector” programs that crossed several subject areas ($2.9 billion, or 4.0%)

• The largest recipient of USAID was Ukraine followed by Israel

A Fox Business Host Didn’t Know That NAFTA Doesn’t Exist Anymore

Although DOGE and Elon Musk’s attempts to destroy USAID dominated coverage on Fox News last week Trump’s proposed tariffs were also a major topic.

On Monday on “Fox & Friends,” Fox Business host Lydia Hu seemed to think NAFTA (North American Trade Agreement) still existed.

“When you look at all of the restrictions we have. Take oil and energy production, for example. Our North American Free Trade Agreement has been in existence for decades,” said Hu.

The North American Free Trade Agreement also known as NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994. It created a free-trade zone in North America between Mexico, Canada and United States.

The agreement was modeled after a similar trade agreement in the European Union.

One of NAFTA’s main provisions called for a gradual reduction of tariffs, custom duties and other trade barriers between Canada, Mexico and the United States. NAFTA also contained provisions aimed at securing intellectual-property rights.

During his first term in office President Donald J. Trump replaced NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) which went into effect on July 1, 2020.

Some of the Major Differences between NAFTA and USMCA

• Open trade between U.S. and Canadian dairy markets

• Enhancements to labor laws (to prevent lower wage jobs moving to Mexico)

• Increasing the percentage of motor vehicle parts produced in the region.

• Stronger protections for intellectual property

• More environmental provisions

• Provisions for digital trade

The agreement is in place for 16 years with the next review by the three nations in July 2026. President Joe Biden did not make any major changes to USMCA.

President Donald J. Trump has been calling the trade deal he negotiated “unfair.”

Stories Fox News Ignored

Every week I compare the hours I’ve watched on Fox News to five hours of the PBS News Hour. The following list are stories taken directly from the transcripts of the PBS News Hour that were not covered on Fox.

• Updates in the War in Ukraine

  • In Ukraine, the UN's nuclear chief is warning that attacks on Ukraine's power grid could lead to a nuclear accident. Rafael Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned that Russian attacks on Ukraine's power supplies could threaten nuclear safety by potentially disrupting the cooling procedures needed at atomic facilities. (PBS News Hour)

• In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwandan backed M23 rebels declared a unilateral ceasefire. In a statement, a spokesperson said the group has no intention of claiming more territory in the region, but he added that it remains committed to protecting and defending the civilian population and our positions. The announcement comes as morgues in the eastern city of Goma are overcrowded with bodies, forcing health workers there to bury the dead in mass graves. (PBS News Hour)

• In Sweden there was a mass shooting that killed 11 people including the gunman. A man opened fire at an education center for adults in the city of Abril, which is about 125 miles west of Stockholm. Within a couple days of the shooting members of the government called for stronger restrictions on firearms. (PBS News Hour)

• Maryland officials gave a first glimpse of the redesign of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge nearly a year after it collapsed. Artistic renderings of the new bridge show it to be taller and better protected against the type of ship strike that toppled its predecessor. The project has a price tag of almost $2 billion and could be completed as soon as 2028. (PBS News Hour)

• A second federal judge put a hold on Trump's executive order to end birthright citizenship. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman issued a nationwide injunction saying that the order, “runs counter to our nation's 250 year history of citizenship by birth.” (PBS News Hour)

• Argentina is withdrawing from the World Health Organization due to the, “profound differences with the agency.” President Javier Miller's decision follows President Trump's executive order to pull the U.S. out of the WHO. The organization coordinates responses to global health threats and provides technical assistance to poorer countries. (PBS News Hour)

• The racial gap in maternal mortality rates widened last year here in the U.S., according to new federal health data. The CDC found that in 2023, Black women in the U.S. died at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than white women. That's a greater disparity than the prior two years, when Black women were 2.6 times more likely to die either before, during, or soon after childbirth. (PBS News Hour)

• Authorities at Seattle's main airport say a Japan Airlines plane struck the tail of a parked Delta aircraft. Video from inside the Delta plane shows airport personnel attending to the scene. (PBS News Hour)

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Trump a golden pager mounted on a wooden stand during their meeting in Washington. It's a not so subtle nod to Israel's operation in Lebanon last year, when pagers and hand-held radios were used to attack members of Hezbollah. (PBS News Hour)

• In Panama the country's president is pushing back on U.S. claims over transit fees for the Panama Canal. The U.S. State Department posted on social media that a deal was reached that would allow U.S. government vessels to pass through free of charge saving the federal government millions of dollars a year. But this morning, Panama's president rejected that claim, calling it flat out false. (PBS News Hour)

• There are growing concerns over the spread of bird flu, after dairy cattle in Nevada became infected with a new variant of the disease. The latest strain is the second instance of the H5n1 virus spilling from birds to cattle. (PBS News Hour)

• The first jobs report of President Trump's second presidency showed U.S. employers added 143,000 jobs in January. That is the lowest number since October, and short of predictions that were around 170,000. The unemployment rate fell to 4%, which experts say may lead the Federal Reserve to hold off on cutting interest rates until at least June. (PBS News Hour)

• Sources on the ground in Sudan tell The New York Times that hundreds of people have been killed in recent days as fighting escalates in the country's civil war.(PBS News Hour)

• PBS produced a segment about the Trump administrations many attempts to sharply curtail any effort to deal with climate change as well as increase production of fossil fuels. (PBS News Hour)

• The CDC says the percentage of visits to doctor's offices due to flu like symptoms was higher last week than the peak of any winter flu season since 2010.

  Flu season typically peaks around February, and the CDC estimates at least 24 million flu cases this season so far. (PBS News Hour)

• Aga Khan, who led the world's Ismaili Muslims, has passed away. Considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad, the Harvard graduate grew into a business magnate and philanthropist. He mixed with the royals and used his riches to build homes, hospitals, and schools in developing countries. The Aga Khan was 88 years old. (PBS News Hour)

• Harry Stuart Junior, a decorated World War Two pilot and one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, has died. After Pearl Harbor Stewart enlisted as soon as he turned 18. He joined what was considered an experiment to train black pilots in Tuskegee, Alabama. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for downing three German aircraft during a single dogfight. Harry Stewart Junior was 100 years old. (PBS News Hour)

• Irv Gotti has died. He founded the influential record label Murder Inc. with his brother in the late 1990s and went on to produce dozens of hits. Gotti helped launch the careers of artists like Cha Rule and Ashanti, and worked with other stars like DMX and Jay-Z. Irv Gotti was 54 years old. (PBS News Hour)

By the Numbers