TRUST: "Trust us," the various magnates have said!

MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2025

But what if the magnates are nuts? We'll start the week with something which may not strike you as crazy. It involves some brand-new claims from one of the persons we've been instructed to trust.

Our exploration starts at 7:04 a.m. on Sunday's Fox & Friends Weekend program. As we start, the friends were lauding the performance of DOGE.

Serving as news reader, Chanley Painter was delivering the day's headline reports. She played videotape of a statement by Antonio Gracias, a new figure at DOGE. 

Painter seems to have misstated who this new figure is. Then, she and the trio of friends began to react in the manner shown:

PAINTER (4/6/25): This comes as the head of DOGE's border team reveals a shocking number of illegal immigrants on Medicaid. Watch:

GRACIAS (videotape): So we mapped it through to the benefit programs. We found in the benefit programs that every benefit was being accessed by these people. You know, 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now. today. And by the way it's just ramping, just starting...  

PAINTER: And he goes on to say that, of the 1.3 million illegals currently claiming Medicaid, that comes to an estimate cost of about $6.5 billion, guys. 

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Wow, Chanley! Thank you for that excellent report. 

As usual, Campos-Duffy was blown away by the latest claim.

For the record, that excellent report by Painter almost surely wasn't. We know of no reason to believe that Gracias is "the head of DOGE's border team," though we're not sure it actually matters.

Who is this new figure at DOGE? Last Sunday night, in a Wisconsin political rally, Elon Musk introduced him to the crowd in the manner shown:

Musk Town Hall in Wisconsin (Sunday, March 30)

MUSK (3/30/25): So a number of friends of mine have actually joined the government in order to help with this process...I'd like to welcome my friend Antonio Gracias to the stage. Antonio is helping out with the Social Security, so just trying to review Social Security where you may have heard that we found 20 million dead people marked as alive in the Social Security database. 

This is so crazy.

"This is so crazy," Musk told the crowd, as he repeated the latest sanded-down version of the "20 million dead people" claim.

"This is so crazy," the magnate said. But what if the magnate is nuts?

At any rate, Gracias is a friend of Musk's, the magnate told the crowd. There seems to be little doubt about that. This is what the New York Times had already reported on March 14:

A Close Elon Musk Friend Joins His Effort on Social Security

A private equity investor who is one of Elon Musk’s closest confidants has taken a new role in the Social Security Administration, a development that could be politically combustible given the program’s popularity with voters and Mr. Musk’s apparent intent to make major changes at the agency.

The investor, Antonio Gracias, who has served on the boards of Mr. Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, has started a job at the administration as part of the Musk-led cost-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency, according to documents seen by The New York Times and two people informed about his appointment.

Of the more than 50 people who have joined Mr. Musk in Washington, almost none have as extensive a history with him as Mr. Gracias. The men met around two decades ago and in that time, Mr. Gracias has become one of Mr. Musk’s most trusted advisers.

[...]

Nine DOGE members have arrived at the Social Security Administration in recent days. They include Mr. Gracias and two other men who work at his investment firm, Valor Equity Partners.

Mr. Gracias met Mr. Musk through David Sacks, a venture capitalist who is now himself a top Trump administration official. He was an early believer in Tesla, and personally lent Mr. Musk $1 million in the company’s early days, according to testimony from Mr. Gracias in a recent court case. The men and their families have vacationed together in the Bahamas and gone skiing in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

As Mr. Musk’s career and wealth flourished, so did that of Mr. Gracias, who has tied his personal brand to the world-famous entrepreneur. Valor has invested in at least five of Mr. Musk’s companies. In 2022 when Mr. Musk bought the social media platform X, then known as Twitter, for $44 billion, he tapped Mr. Gracias to manage the finances of the transaction.

[...]

Mr. Gracias has undergone a political reinvention. He attended the September 2016 presidential debate as a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign in 2020. Now, he largely backs Republicans: He gave millions to David McCormick during his 2022 and 2024 Senate runs in Pennsylvania and donated $1 million to Mr. Musk’s pro-Trump super PAC.

At times, Mr. Gracias’s language has been bolder than Mr. Musk’s. In the February podcast episode, he said Mr. Musk’s declaration that 10 percent of the federal budget was probably fraud “might be low.” He has also claimed that the country was flirting with becoming a “kleptocracy” and a “Latin American-style autocracy.”

There's nothing "wrong" with any of that. None of that means that the allegations reported by Painter somehow just have to be false.

That said, Gracias doesn't seem to be "the head of DOGE's border team." According to Forbes, Gracias is a multibillionaire too—and he seems to be all in on Musk!

With that, let's return to what people were told if they were watching Fox & Friends Weekend. As we started to show you above, after Painter delivered the mail, the three friends responded as shown:

PAINTER (4/6/25): This comes as the head of DOGE's border team reveals a shocking number of illegal immigrants on Medicaid. Watch:

GRACIAS (videotape): So we mapped it through to the benefit programs. We found in the benefit programs that every benefit was being accessed by these people. You know, 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid right now. today. And by the way it's just ramping, just starting...  

PAINTER: And he goes on to say that of the 1.3 million illegals currently claiming Mediacod,that comes to a estimate cost of $6.5 billion, guys. 

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Wow, Chanley! Thank you for that excellent report. 

That is no chump change, you guys! $6.5 billion spent on 1.3 million illegals who should not be on Medicaid? That's incredible.

HURT: And if you care about Medicaid, don't you want to keep it solvent?...It makes no sense. If you care about these things, then you would like to keep them solvent. 

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yeah.

JENKINS: I got to tell you, I hope DOGE goes deep on this. Because I think that number is significantly lower than the reality—

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Me too. I think the same thing.

So it went, as prescribed by the rules. As we've often noted, the various friends always "think the same thing" about whatever has been said on this imitation of a "cable news" program.

As always, the three friends all agreed with each other. Let's remember to say their names:

Fox & Friends Weekend: Sunday, 4/6/25
Rachel Campos-Duffy: regular co-host
Charlie Hurt: regular co-host
Griff Jenkins: substitute co-host

Inevitably, all three friends were blown away by what Gracias had said. Also, by what Painter said that Gracias said—but what had he actually said?

Painter seemed to be working from a brief, brand-new report by the Daily Mail. It quoted something Gracias had said on a certain podcast, after which it may have added to what he actually said.

Rightly or wrongly, this report does describe Gracias as "the head of DOGE's border team." Everything is always possible, but we've seen no sign, anywhere else, that this new arrival at DOGE has been assigned to some such post.

That said, here's the Daily Mail report:

DOGE's border expert reveals terrifying number of illegals on Medicaid: 'It's just ramping up'

Illegal immigrants are claiming billions of dollars worth of Medicaid and other US benefits, according to data uncovered by the head of DOGE's border team.

Antonio Gracias said around 1.3 million non-citizens are currently claiming Medicaid, at an estimated cost of around $6.5 billion.

The stark revelation came after Gracias and his team began probing the huge uptick in non-citizens who were assigned Social Security numbers last year. 

[...]

'The defaults in the system, from Social Security to all benefit programs, have been set to maximum inclusion, maximum pay for these people, and minimum collection,' he told the All-In podcast.

"Already, we found 1.3 million of them on Medicaid as an example," he continued. "And we found people in this population registered to vote."

According to Medicaid.gov, the average annual cost per Medicaid enrollee is between $4,000 and $7,000, meaning the cost for all non-citizen beneficiaries tops out at $6.5 billion.

As you can see, Gracias was quoted referring to the "1.3 million non-citizens" who are (allegedly) "on Medicaid." He wasn't quoted about the alleged cost of all that alleged fraud—about the alleged $6.5 billion.

Also as you can see, Gracias was said to have made this presentation on "the All-In podcast." That said, what is the All-In podcast? The leading authority on the podcast tells us this:

All-In (podcast)

All-In is an American business and technology podcast hosted by four venture capitalists: Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg. The podcast covers current events, market trends, political issues, and industry insights.

The All-In podcast was launched in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The hosts, who are long-time friends and colleagues, started the podcast to discuss pressing issues and share their perspectives with a broader audience, quickly receiving a large following.

[...]

Oliver Tryon praised the podcast at Cultr in 2020, and wrote, " Anyone interested in tech, business and everything in between—this is a must listen." Nitish Pahwa wrote at Slate in 2023 that the podcast is "where Silicon Valley's money says what it really thinks," while also condemning the show for "falling back on shallow talking points when it comes to common bugbears—the media, 'woke' and triggered libs, anti-capitalists, tech workers aka the 'surplus elite,' criminal justice reformers."

For the record, there you see David Sacks (and his friends) once again. At this point, we pose a question:

Can you trust the things you hear on this "venture capitalist" podcast? We quickly move to a broader question:

At this Babel-adjacent point in time, who in the world can you trust?

Back to Sunday's Fox & Friends! Campos-Duffy was blown away by what Gracias was said to have said.  Inevitably, she and Griffin said they were sure that the actual amount of (alleged) fraud would be much larger than Gracias had said.

For the record, Gracias and Musk had been bruiting one part of this claim for at least a week by that time. As you can see through the transcript and videotape offered by the invaluable Rev, here was Gracias at that Wisconsin town hall:

GRACIAS (3/30/25): So let me tell you what happened here. We started at the top of the system. We started at the top of the system mapping the whole system of Social Security to understand where all the fraud was...

Look, if I hadn't seen this myself, I'm not sure I would have believed it. I went through it myself and mapped it. And Elon is right. This is true. The defaults in the system from Social Security to all of the benefit programs have been set to max inclusion, max pay for these people, and minimum collection. That's what's happening. We found 1.3 million of them already on Medicaid as an example...

So said the second billionaire. For the record, he didn't say anything that night about the alleged $6.5 billion in fraudulent Medicaid costs.

We've offered you a bit of background concerning what Painter said. When Painter said what she said, the three friends leaped into action.

Given past ludicrous claims—for example, given Musk's ludicrous, constantly-changing insinuations and statements about all the 150-year-old Social Security recipients—none of the friends wondered if these latest plutocrat claims could be trusted. Within Red America, people were simply offered these latest claims, with Campos-Duffy and Jenkins saying they were sure that the problem is worse.

So it goes within one imitation of TV news as a vast nation teeters and flails. We live inside a giant Babel, containing a multitude of self-assured voices making all sorts of "terrifying" claims.

For ourselves, we decided to google around to see what parts of the statements in question might be verifiable. We'll only tell you this:

We found an April 4 report by CBS News—an extremely detailed report which seemed to challenge the core of Gracias' statements. Like many parts of the American system, the matter at hand is impossibly complex, but this is the way CBS started:

Elon Musk, DOGE use access to Social Security data to elevate claims against migrants

Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency say they're using their access to the Social Security Administration data not only to investigate claims of waste and fraud, but also to examine claims that immigrants are abusing the system—even though undocumented immigrants contribute more to Social Security than they take. 

During his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, last Sunday, Musk and Antonio Gracias, a longtime friend and DOGE employee at the Social Security Administration, displayed a chart that purported to show over 5 million non-citizens who were issued Social Security numbers between 2021 and 2025.

Musk called it a "massive financial incentive" for people to come to the U.S. illegally and claimed it was a large-scale Democratic "program" intended "to import as many illegals as possible." Gracias claimed the number of immigrants with Social Security numbers was "totally uncontrolled" and blamed former President Joe Biden's immigration laws for this. 

The U.S. may grant parole to certain migrants for humanitarian or other reasons, allowing them to live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis, usually for a year or two, but it's not a path to citizenship. The status allows some to obtain Social Security numbers, which makes it legal for them to find work, but they do not receive Social Security benefits. 

DOGE's chart represented immigrants with legal work authorizations who were given Social Security numbers through the Enumeration Beyond Entry program, known as EBE. Those here illegally, without any lawful immigration status, are not eligible for a Social Security number.

But then Gracias conflated the two groups and talked broadly about violent acts by undocumented immigrants as he stood in front of a chart showing data about immigrants with legal work permits. 

The EBE program, created during President Trump's first term, automatically processes Social Security cards for immigrants with temporary or permanent legal status, including those with green cards or work authorization from the Department of Homeland Security. 

We don't exactly understand that; neither does anyone else.  There is no paywall at CBS News, so you can read the rest of the lengthy, complex report.

For the record, the CBS report didn't address the claim that 1.3 million illegal immigrants are somehow receiving Medicaid. As far as we know, Gracias hadn't been making that claim as of April 4.

Please bear with us now:

We're showing you how hard it is, under current arrangements, to fact-check terrifying claims. Claims like these go flying by on a program like Fox & Friends Weekend, with the trio of friends agreeing with every word that has been said by anyone on the Trump / DOGE teams.

For the record, Gracias did make something like the claim about the alleged 1.3 million Medicaid recipient on the All-In podcast.  You can see that brief clip here, presented by the All-In podcast under this SHOCKING headline:

Antonio Gracias Breaks Down SHOCKING Immigration Data

Gracias made the SHOCKING claim. The trio of friends said the reality is almost certainly worse.

With that, we leave you with an important question, one we'll explore all week:

As our nation slides toward the sea, who in the world can you trust?

"Trust us," the gaggle of magnates have said. But what if the magnates are nuts?

Tomorrow: Given his various very strange statements, should you trust Elon Musk?