The far-left New York Times has dropped a report claiming that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and billionaire genius Elon Musk engaged in a shouting match during a private White House Cabinet meeting on Thursday.
Mediaite, another propaganda arm for radical leftists, described it as a “knock-down, drag-out fight.”
The “reporting” comes from Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, two of the Times’ biggest anti-Trump mouthpieces, and the supposed dust-up ended when President Trump stepped in to defend Rubio and set the record straight on the administration’s priorities.
The Times alleges that Musk accused Rubio of being ineffective in his role, criticizing him for not firing enough State Department employees.
Rubio, in turn, reportedly pushed back, detailing the extensive restructuring efforts he has implemented, including voluntary buyouts for over 1,500 employees. The newspaper goes on to suggest that the argument got so heated that it required Trump’s intervention to settle the dispute.
Of course, The New York Times fails to provide any direct evidence or on-the-record sources to back up their salacious claims, relying instead on anonymous leaks from five individuals purportedly “familiar with the matter.”
The Times claims Trump told Musk that his team would no longer be calling the shots unilaterally and that Cabinet secretaries would maintain control.
The New York Times reported:
Mr. Rubio had been privately furious with Mr. Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under Mr. Rubio’s control: the United States Agency for International Development. But, in the extraordinary cabinet meeting in front of President Trump and around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Mr. Rubio got his grievances off his chest.
Mr. Musk was not being truthful, Mr. Rubio said. What about the more than 1,500 State Department officials who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they count as layoffs? He asked, sarcastically, whether Mr. Musk wanted him to rehire all those people just so he could make a show of firing them again. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Department.
Mr. Musk was unimpressed. He told Mr. Rubio he was “good on TV,” with the clear subtext being that he was not good for much else. Throughout all of this, the president sat back in his chair, arms folded, as if he were watching a tennis match.
After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time, Mr. Trump finally intervened to defend Mr. Rubio as doing a “great job.” Mr. Rubio has a lot to deal with, the president said. He is very busy, he is always traveling and on TV, and he has an agency to run. So everyone just needs to work together.
The meeting was a potential turning point after the frenetic first weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term. It yielded the first significant indication that Mr. Trump was willing to put some limits on Mr. Musk, whose efforts have become the subject of several lawsuits and prompted concerns from Republican lawmakers, some of whom have complained directly to the president.
Cabinet officials almost uniformly like the concept of what Mr. Musk set out to do — reducing waste, fraud and abuse in government — but have been frustrated by the chain saw approach to upending the government and the lack of consistent coordination.
Mediaite reported that the Times story was published just one day after Politico revealed key details from the same meeting.
According to Politico’s reporting, Trump told top officials that Musk’s role was to make recommendations, not issue unilateral staffing or policy decisions.
Trump himself weighed in on Truth Social, providing a clear summary of what actually happened:
“The Golden Age of America has just begun! Over the past six weeks, our Administration has delivered on promises like no Administration before it, always putting America First! DOGE has been an incredible success, and now that we have my Cabinet in place, I have instructed the Secretaries and Leadership to work with DOGE on Cost Cutting measures and Staffing.
As the Secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various Departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go. We say the “scalpel” rather than the “hatchet.” The combination of them, Elon, DOGE, and other great people will be able to do things at a historic level.
We just had a meeting with most of the Secretaries, Elon, and others, and it was a very positive one. It’s very important that we cut levels down to where they should be, but it’s also important to keep the best and most productive people.
We’re going to have these meetings every two weeks until that aspect of this very necessary job is done. The relationships between everybody in that room are extraordinary. They all want to get to the exact same place, which is, simply, to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The Gateway Pundit has reached out to the White House for a statement.
According to The Times, administration officials provided the following responses:
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement: “As President Trump said, this was a great and productive meeting amongst members of his team to discuss cost-cutting measures and staffing across the federal government. Everyone is working as one team to help President Trump deliver on his promise to make our government more efficient.”
Tammy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the State Department, responded, “Secretary Rubio considered the meeting an open and productive discussion with a dynamic team that is united in achieving the same goal: making America great again.”
A Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman said, “As President Trump has said, it’s important to increase efficiency and reduce bureaucracy while keeping in place the best and most productive federal employees. V.A. is working with DOGE and the rest of the administration to do just that.”
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