Photo: Alamy
President Trump shattered another seemingly out-of-nowhere fake news narrative on Thursday night.
In a Truth Social post, the 47th president wrote, “The Fake News is at it again, this time the Failing New York Times. They said, incorrectly, that Elon Musk is going to the Pentagon tomorrow to be briefed on any potential ‘war with China.’ How ridiculous?” China will not even be mentioned or discussed. How disgraceful it is that the discredited media can make up such lies. Anyway, the story is completely untrue!!!”
Multiple mainstream news outlets furthered the narrative, but Department of Defense (DOD) Secretary Pete Hegseth, DOD spokesperson Sean Parnell and Elon Musk torched the outlet for its falsehoods.
During a Friday appearance on Fox News, Parnell made an on-the-record refutation. “Yeah on the record, that is completely fake. This started with this New York Times headline, and they since changed it, but ‘Musk set to get access to top secret US plan for potential war with China?’ This is egregious, this is fake. The New York Times should retract this story. Five anonymous sources,” Parnell remarked.
“I’ve been on bilat calls with the secretary. I see how hard he’s working to implement the president’s agenda and pursue peace through strength. This type of garbage from the New York Times undermines that process and undermines our mission. It shouldn’t happen at all.”
The official DOD Rapid Response account on X quickly moved to set the record straight. “The NYT is a propaganda machine that desperately needs to clickbait people into reading their FAKE news articles. Elon Musk and DOGE are doing great work to help the DOD!”
Musk shared a photo of President Trump’s post and wrote, “The New York Times is pure propaganda. Also, I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information to the NYT. They will be found.”
Secretary Hegseth commended Parnell for his on-air slaughter of the story. “Sean is, again, correct with his absolute master class pushback against media lies. The NYT should immediately retract this fake narrative,” Hegseth wrote on X.
President Trump addressed the matter again on Friday morning, slamming the outlet and others for their mockingbird reporting.
“’Elon Musk will be briefed by the Pentagon about the USA’s top secret plans against China should there be a War,’” according to the Failing New York Times, one of the worst and most purposely inaccurate newspapers anywhere in the World. Their FAKE concept for this story is that because Elon does some business in China, that he is very conflicted and would immediately go to top Chinese officials and ‘spill the beans.’” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
He continued, “RATINGS CHALLENGED FAKE NEWS CNN immediately picked up on this absolutely ridiculous and false story, which is probably libelous, and went heavy with it. Fortunately, nobody was watching!”
“Maggot Hagerman, the really dumb ‘scammer’ who constantly writes about me for the Times, using anonymous, made up (nonexistent!) sources, and who I haven’t spoken to in ages, is a big part of the Scam. She lead the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, only to realize that she was duped and got it wrong. She owes me a totally discredited Pulitzer Prize for her bad reporting.”
Trump concluded, “The Fake News is the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE…And Elon is NOT BEING BRIEFED ON ANYTHING CHINA BY THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR!!!”
