By Molly Goddard
7:11am PST, Feb 12, 2025
"It was surreal," Sununu emphasized about the joint press conference the commander-in-chief and the tech mogul held in the Oval Office the same day.
"But I gotta tell you, I know what you're not showing here, but Musk gave seven specific examples off the top of his head of where the corruption and fraud were," the right-winger claimed. "He was talking about a contractor that had a three-month contract. He was paid for 20 years. He was talking about welfare
benefits that were being paid to someone that was technically 150 years old."
Despite Sununu's point, Cooper was not buying it. "But we didn't see any of that. He doesn't present any actual evidence," the television personality said.
"He's standing there in the Oval Office. Do you expect him to come in with 10,000 pages?" Sununu shot back. "And I have to be clear. To complain about this administration, about transparency when this president takes open questions on a daily basis, yet [former President]
Joe Biden didn't show up for a press conference in six months is insane. These guys are being extremely transparent. They don't have to sit there and take the questions, but they do. It's all on the website. It's all out there."
While the engineer's remark mirrored what Musk told the media, the Department of Government Efficiency website appears to only be a homepage that says the entity's name without any links.
Former Federal Prosecutor
Jeffrey Toobin, who was also on the panel, added, "It's not transparency to say things that have no factual background. I mean to say… we've found $1 billion or $1 trillion in waste with no specifics, that's just talk. That's not
transparency."
While the three went at it about the evidence behind Musk's claims, Sununu said, "It's all going to come because what they also said was, if we have to go to Congress, we'll go to Congress. We'll show where it is."
"But some of the details that
have come out, like the $59 million spent on luxury hotels. It's actually not,"
Cooper said as things got heated.
"You're talking about the FEMA money that was abused for migrants. That was FEMA money for migrants. That's ok now," the civil servant spat back.
"No, I'm not saying it's ok. Don't put words in my mouth," the
60 Minutes correspondent said.
"So, would you stop that? Would you stop that
process?" Sununu questioned.
Cooper then made a bold statement, stating, "Don't be a d—. What I'm saying is the portrayal by him is just not factually accurate. He's talking about luxury hotels."
