President Donald Trump was flanked by billionaire adviser Elon Musk again this week during a sit-down interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity as the pair discussed government savings, conflicts of interest and the future of federal agencies, including the Department of Education.
As the administration continues to slash what it considers wasteful government spending, the interview included discussions about cutting federal spending on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the legacy of their political opponents and other issues.
Newsweek's Fact Check team has investigated some of the key discussion points.
Were Astronauts Left in Space for 'Political Reasons'?
Referring to the journey of astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore, whose mission was intended to last a few days but has ended up stretching on for months due to complications, both Musk and Trump said the pair had been left in space for "political reasons" and because former President Joe Biden "didn't want the publicity."
Those comments are not true.
A series of technical failures, including thruster malfunctions and a helium leak, with the Boeing Starliner crew capsule that took them to space, led to Williams and Wilmore not being able to make a return journey. NASA is working with Musk's SpaceX to try and safely return the astronauts from the International Space Station.
Efforts to get the astronauts back on Earth, including proposals to use a SpaceX flight, were in play before Trump was sworn into office.
The return journey of Williams and Wilmore was first reported in August 2024, several months before Trump's election victory. Steve Stich, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told NPR that the astronauts were scheduled for a SpaceX flight home, describing it as "the easiest and the best option."
Under the Biden administration, NASA outlined plans to bring them home in December 2024, proposing the use of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which Trump and Musk would later say they would use.
Did Trump Save Nearly $2 Billion on Air Force One?
Trump said: "I negotiated the price. It was $5.7 billion, and I got it—I got them down $1.7 billion. Now they're not building the plane fast enough."
In 2018, officials said that Trump had saved more than $1.4 billion on the cost of two next-generation Air Force One planes, on a fixed-cost contract with Boeing of $3.9 billion.
Trump has at various times said that he managed to save $1.5 billion, $1.6 billion, and now $1.7 billion on the project.
Those numbers do not line up with reported costs for the project.
In one 2018 Newsweek article, "Donald Trump's Air Force One Savings Just Don't Add Up", Newsweek reported that it could not find how the project would have cost $5.4 billion at the outset (based on Trump saying that he saved $1.5 billion), other than erroneously combining project costs by folding in research spending already included within other spending estimates. Newsweek has contacted a White House representative for comment.
The figures Trump gave in the Hannity interview are above the cost base and reported savings his officials said his negotiations achieved.
The project has reportedly cost Boeing more than the contract to deliver the aircraft, with CNBC reporting that in 2022, Boeing was paid around $4 billion for the work and had lost $1.1 billion in costs related to the deal.
A report by the aviation industry magazine Simple Flying wrote that inflationary costs since its announcement would have increased the project price from $3.9 billion to $4.87 billion.
Did CBS Change Kamala Harris' Interview Answer?
Referring to a Kamala Harris CBS interview in October 2024, Trump said: "I mean, CBS now—they changed an answer in Kamala. They asked her some questions. She answered them like, you know, a low-IQ person. The opposite of him—the absolute opposite. But she gave a horrible answer. They took the entire answer out, and they put another answer that she gave 20 minutes later into the—in—as the answer."
This claim is not true.
As reported by PolitiFact, CBS released a clip with a shortened answer to a question about U.S.-Israel diplomacy and relations but, as the full transcript showed, this was not an answer to another question. It was a shortened version of a longer answer. Trump's implication that CBS favorably edited that footage for Harris is not true.
Was $7 Million Spent on a 'Transgender' Opera?
Discussing spending, Trump said there had been a "lot of fraud" in government spending, saying that former administrations had been sending money "for transgender—something having to do with the opera, and they're sending out $7 million."
Musk laughed at the comment and replied, "Literally."
The figure here could be a mix-up of the multitude of comments made about government spending recently, but the U.S. did not spend $7 million on a "transgender" opera.
In 2022, the U.S. State Department committed $25,000 to a Colombian university "to raise awareness and increase the transgender representation" with an opera performance. Although not mentioned here, erroneous claims about this spending have been falsely attached to USAID by members of the Trump administration.
Later in the Hannity interview, Trump mentioned the government had spent $4 million "to assess the dialogue of an audience coming out of a theater."
Newsweek did not find what $4 million in government spending went to audience dialogue analysis and has asked the White House for comment to clarify.
Did Reuters Get $10 Million for a 'Mass Disinformation Campaign'
At one point during the interview, as Trump complained about the media, Musk interjected with an inaccurate statement about the news agency Reuters, telling Hannity: "Well Reuters—this is actually really wild: Reuters got something like $10 million for something that was literally titled 'mass disinformation campaign.' "
This is not true. The claim has been pushed by Musk and Trump over the past week, based on a gross misreading of publicly available government spending data.
Trump's characterization is without evidence. Thomson Reuters said last week it was "inaccurately represented" by comments that the company played a role in "large scale social deception."
Reuters reported that in 2018, under Trump's first term, the U.S. Department of Defense and a division of content and technology company Thomson Reuters Special Services (TRSS) was given a four-year, $9 million award, intended to protect the U.S. government from social engineering, a cybersecurity threat where people are tricked into handing over sensitive data.
As stated by Thomson Reuters, TRSS is a separate legal entity with its own board of directors.
"TRSS has provided software and information services to U.S. government agencies across successive administrations for decades, to assist in identifying and preventing fraud, supporting public safety, and advancing justice," Steve Rubley, CEO of Thomson Reuters Special Services, said in a statement.
Does the US Spend the Most Per Pupil Globally?
Hannity later asked about Trump's plans for the Department of Education, an agency the president has said he could close down.
In his answer, Trump compared the cost of education per pupil in the U.S. with other nations.
Trump said: "I'll tell you what we're number one in: cost per pupil. We spend more money than any other country by far—it's not even close—per pupil. OK? So, we know it doesn't work."
Publicly available comparative data suggests this isn't true.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has reported that the U.S. spent less than Norway and Luxembourg in expenditure on educational institutions per full-time equivalent student, based on data from 2021. The U.S. ranked sixth for primary education.
