Another day, another embarrassing meltdown from the legacy media.
CNN’s resident fake news peddler, Michael Smerconish, couldn’t handle the cold, hard truth about government waste and taxpayer rip-offs.
During an interview with DOGE Dividend original creator James Fishback, a Trump-aligned entrepreneur and CEO of Azoria, Smerconish fumed and ultimately threatened to cut the mic when his leftist talking points crumbled under the weight of FACTS.
The DOGE Dividend, a bold new initiative supported by President Trump and spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), aims to return taxpayer savings back to hardworking Americans.
The plan proposes that 20% of the money saved through cutting government waste would be refunded directly to taxpayers, while another 20% would go toward paying down the national debt. But for some reason, this common-sense approach sent Smerconish into a full-blown meltdown.
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Right out of the gate, Smerconish attempted to smear Fishback by bringing up his ties to Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy—because, in CNN’s world, supporting America First policies is apparently a crime.
But Fishback didn’t take the bait. He confidently laid out the plan, explaining that Americans deserve restitution for decades of government fraud, waste, and abuse.
Michael Smerconish:Okay, I'm all for ridding the government of waste, fraud, and abuse, but at some level, isn't this all illusory? In other words, if there's a savings made by Elon Musk and DOGE, we're still $36 trillion in debt. There's no pie to cut up, no slice of pizza that I can hand back to you—unless we continue to borrow those funds.
James Fishback:Our plan is really simple. Over the next couple of years, DOGE will save a set amount of money. We're going to take 20% of that and put it right back in the hands of taxpayers. The other 80%, as President Trump has pointed out, will go toward paying down the debt and narrowing the deficit.
Here's the truth, Michael. For every $5 that DOGE saves, as we believe calculated by the Congressional Budget Office, when this whole project is said and done next summer, for every $5 saved, $1 goes back into the pockets of American taxpayers.
And why? Because they sent their money to D.C. to be spent in America—not to be abused, not to be disrespected, and not to be defrauded.
That $20 million for a "Rocky Sesame Street," the money spent on a transgender opera in Colombia—all while roads and bridges are crumbling. We're losing 900 Americans every day to deaths of despair, alcoholism, and suicide.
Eight out of ten Black American fourth graders aren't even reading at grade level. This is pathetic. Americans sent their money to be spent in America, and they were defrauded. They were lied to.
They now deserve restitution. The second point President Trump—just one sec, Michael—the second point that President Trump brought up on Air Force One is that these DOGE Dividends will incentivize Americans to report waste, fraud, and abuse in their own communities.
Why? Because the more DOGE saves, the bigger their DOGE Dividend check will be. Remember, in economics: "Show me the incentive, and I'll show you the outcome."
Instead of addressing the corruption and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars, Smerconish resorted to cheap deflections and condescending remarks—even suggesting that funding “Sesame Street in Iraq” was preferable to eliminating terrorists. Fishback immediately fired back:
Michael Smerconish:I gave you a chance for a great soundbite. Those soft power exercises make for great soundbites. But when you drill down, for example, on "Sesame Street in Iraq," they often make sense. Joseph Nye from Harvard, who gets credited with coining the term "soft power," argues that it's better to spend on that than on bullets. But wait—you want to talk about the economics?
James Fishback:There was a terrorist attack in Iraq last month that killed 40 people. It's clearly not working. Soft power and Sesame Street are not working. If there are terrorists, we need to kill the terrorists. We don't need to fund Big Bird and Elmo.
Michael Smerconish:Maybe the terrorists would have been better off watching Big Bird than learning in a madrasa. Let me make my point.
Smerconish then made an absolutely laughable attempt to argue that every penny saved by DOGE should go toward the national debt. That’s rich, coming from the same network that cheered on trillions in reckless spending on Ukraine, climate boondoggles, and handouts for illegal immigrants.
Where was this so-called debt concern when Biden was writing blank checks to foreign nations and progressive pet projects? Fishback called out the hypocrisy in real-time.
Michael Smerconish: If Elon Musk is successful in saving us money from waste, fraud, and abuse—and by the way, James, I hope that he is—I don’t like the approach, but I like the fact that something’s being done. Still, there is no money in the till. We owe $36 trillion.
So whatever savings there are, it's not like President Trump is doing us a favor by giving us 20%. Everything ought to go toward the debt because, as the Peterson people say, by 2050, 50% of all revenue will go toward interest on the debt. We should be paying the debt. Your response?
James Fishback:My response is this: We should be paying the debt, which is why the DOGE Dividend incentivizes every American to call out waste, fraud, and abuse, to lower the budget, narrow the deficit, and bring down the debt.
Where was this emergency over the debt when we sent $350 billion to Ukraine to be wasted? Where was this emergency, Michael, on CNN, when you guys were advocating for $7,000 a month per migrant in Chicago?
And now, suddenly, when President Trump wants to send $5,000 one time to hardworking Americans, it's a problem? Migrants didn’t deserve $7,000 a month. Hardworking Americans deserve a $5,000 check with President Trump’s name on it. Enough with the double standard.
As Fishback continued to expose the corruption and hypocrisy of the establishment, Smerconish completely lost it. Desperate to regain control, he repeatedly interrupted and even threatened to cut his mic.
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