They cannot get away with it anymore.
Friday on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Bono, the legendary frontman for the band U2 and a notoriously insufferable liberal, tried spreading one of the biggest lies ever told.
Fortunately, host Joe Rogan, with help from Elon Musk — the erstwhile head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency and owner of the social media platform X — corrected Bono in real time, thereby demonstrating that liberals have not yet adjusted to the new media landscape in which their falsehoods face immediate challenges.
Bono’s lie involved the United States Agency for International Development.
In February, Musk’s DOGE took aim at USAID. Ostensibly a foreign aid organization, USAID had long since morphed into an agency that functioned as an arm of illicit statecraft. Thus, the Trump administration made cuts to USAID, folding it into the State Department under Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Also in February, when Trump introduced Robert F. Kennedy Jr. following the latter’s confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services, Kennedy reminded the press that his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, had established USAID for humanitarian purposes. Nonetheless, Secretary Kennedy thanked Trump for shuttering that agency.
“It has been captured by the military-industrial complex,” the secretary said of USAID. “It has become a sinister propagator of totalitarianism across — and war — across the globe. And very few people understand how sinister this agency really is.”
Count Bono among the majority who lack that understanding.
Is new media more reliable than establishment media?
“It’s not proven,” the singer began, “but there’s surveillance enough, suggests 300,000 people have already died from just this cutoff, this hard cut of USAID.”
Bono then proceeded to describe alleged warehouses of rotting food all over the world.
“What is that?” he asked the host. “That’s not America, is it?”
“Well,” Rogan replied, “they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”
In other words, the host politely appeared to concede his guest’s point. But Rogan quickly shifted focus to USAID’s real activities.
“The problem is,” the host added, “for sure, there have been a lot of organizations that do tremendous good all throughout the world. Also for sure, it was a money-laundering operation.”
One wonders if Bono had ever heard the phrase “money laundering” associated with USAID. Thanks to Rogan, he has now.
“For sure,” the host continued, “there was no oversight; for sure, billions of dollars are missing — in fact, trillions — that are unaccounted for, that were sent off into various — they don’t even know where because there’s no receipts.”
Rogan then quoted Musk.
“The way Elon Musk described it,” the host said, “he said, ‘If any of this was done by a public company, the company would be de-listed, and the executives would be in prison.”
Readers may view the entire exchange in the YouTube video below. The relevant segment began around the 54:09 mark.
WARNING: The following video contains vulgar language that some viewers may find offensive.
Friday on X, Musk followed up with harsh words about Bono’s truthfulness and intelligence.
“He’s such a liar/idiot. Zero people have died!” Musk wrote.
He’s such a liar/idiot 🤦♂️
Zero people have died!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2025
Indeed, at a Senate hearing last month, Rubio revealed that only 12 cents of every USAID dollar reached recipients.
Shutting down an organization like that — a “sinister” agency, as Kennedy described it — would hardly lead to worldwide deaths, let alone 300,000 of them.
Thanks to Rogan, Musk, and the new media landscape, Bono’s lie did not go unchallenged.
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