Republican-aligned news anchors held a wake for Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s bromance on Thursday.
As the two billionaires feuded over the “big, beautiful bill” and Trump’s associations with Jeffrey Epstein, thoughts and prayers on MAGA networks went out—to both of them.
Will Cain was the first Fox News host to cover Musk’s tantalizing accusation on Thursday that Trump is named in the government’s files on the pedophile, which Musk claimed is the reason why Attorney General Pam Bondi has not released the documents.
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The bombshell came after the two traded barbs throughout Thursday over the spending package, which Musk opposes. Trump suggested earlier on Thursday that Musk may suffer from “Trump derangement syndrome” and that Musk had gone “CRAZY!”
Cain said on The Will Cain Show that the saga was “not a story that we wanted today for America.”
“Seems a rubicon that Elon Musk has crossed that it appears it’s hard to see a path forward for these two to repair their relationship,” Cain said. “This is not a story that anyone was looking for—perhaps somewhat predictable with two big personalities—but not a story that we wanted today for America."
The sadness continued on The Five, where panelists Greg Gutfeld and Kayleigh McEnany lamented the breakdown. Gutfeld said the feud was a “battle between the purists and the pragmatists.”
“I don’t like it,” Gutfeld said. “I want it to stop. I want to tell them, if they are both watching: Knock it off. We’re done with this.”
McEnany also took issue with Musk’s claim that, if he had not donated more than $300 million to help support Trump, Trump would have lost the election. “President Trump won all of the swing states, he is the first person in the Republican Party to win the popular vote in 20 years,” McEnany said, touting his electoral accomplishments. “No amount of money bought that. What bought that was a movement.”
“I think it’s a sad thing to see,” she added. “I don’t want to see the adults fighting, but I do think this was predictable.”
The schism between the U.S. president and the world’s richest man rippled among Republicans on Thursday, with many of its media personalities figuring out how to balance Musk’s financial contributions to the party with their overwhelming support of Trump.
Podcast host Megyn Kelly told fellow conservative podcaster Stu Burguiere before the Epstein accusation on Thursday that she hoped Musk would eventually come around to the “big, beautiful bill.” Musk has derided the mega bill as a “disgusting abomination.”
“It’s so much better for America, I think, to have Elon on board with the Trump agenda,” Kelly said on Thursday’s episode of The Megyn Kelly Show. “It does not serve us at all to have him supporting Democrats.”
But Kelly conceded that Trump likely won’t let Musk’s claim that his support won Trump the election go. “There’s zero chance Trump’s going to let ‘you would have lost the election without me’ lie,” Kelly said.
“It’s about to get ugly,” she added.
Trump has not responded to the Epstein accusation, but he tried to brush off the friendship on Truth Social while advocating for the spending package, which the Senate is reviewing.
“I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago,” Trump wrote.
