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Fox Host Demolishes Musk Over New Spending Bill’s Child Cancer Research Cuts

“It’s a drop in the bucket,” Jessica Tarlov said of the program’s overall cost.

Fox News host Jessica Tarlov criticized Elon Musk for getting involved in Congress’ spending bill deliberations—and took particular umbrage at the fact that Musk and Donald Trump’s dramatic interventions likely resulted in the loss of funding for a pediatric cancer research program.

The Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program was established in 2014 with funding approved by Congress for the next 10 years. On Wednesday, it was all set to have its funding reauthorized—until Musk and Trump demanded a slimmed-down funding bill Wednesday night, tanking a bipartisan agreement at the 11th hour in dramatic fashion.

On The Five, Tarlov said the cost of funding the program—$190 million—was minuscule when compared to what was in the original bill.

“The richest man in the world wanted this. Elon Musk did,” Tarlov said. “What’s your problem with a bipartisan cancer research program for $190 million? A drop in the bucket of what this is. Those are the kinds of things that came out of this."

Some lawmakers, like Virginia Rep. Jennifer Wexton, also brought attention to the program being omitted from the latest version of the bill—which happened to fail later Thursday night as well.

Tarlov pointed out that it was Musk who first came out against the spending bill, earning him the nickname “President Musk.” Trump, meanwhile, has been mockingly referred to online as “Vice President Trump.”

“The reason that people are saying that [Musk] is the unelected president, not only because of the hundreds of millions of dollars that he paid to get Donald Trump elected, is that Donald Trump wasn’t kicking up a fuss about the bill before Elon Musk got a bee in his bonnet,” she said.

“He wasn’t saying anything. And then Musk gets mad and floats things about bioweapons, labs, and the D.C. stadium thing, which he got completely wrong, and suddenly this is happening,” she said.

Tarlov was referring to how Musk once again pushed a false claim to his massive audience when he amplified posts on X incorrectly stating that the spending bill allocated $3 billion for a new Washington Commanders football stadium.

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