CNN’s Shermichael Singleton criticized Department of Government Efficiency co-heads Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on Thursday evening, urging them to “focus” more on saving taxpayers’ dollars and less on immigration policy.
An online debate over H-1B visas erupted Thursday on X, with both Musk and Ramaswamy appearing to take a pro-H-1B stance, leading to disagreements with many in President-elect Donald Trump’s base. On “The Source With Kaitlan Collins,” the CNN host, Collins, asked the panelist about his views and the potential divide it could cause within Trump’s base.
“Look, I think with all due respect to Mr. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, they should focus on saving federal dollars for the taxpayers and not immigration policy,” Singleton said. “I understand some of the points that Catherine [Rampell] made, and I agree to an extent, but I think the U.S. should focus more on domestic skilled development. Studies also show that H1B1 exacerbates employers hiring individuals from outside of the country when they can potentially hire minorities, for an example, which we know there’s a shortage in the STEM fields.”
“There are a significant number of Americans who I think would love opportunities if they had the proper training and skills to operate in those jobs fairly well. So why not start and focus there?” Singleton asked.
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“I’m not of the support or mindset, Kaitlin, that we should let in more than the 60 plus thousand that were already let into the country. Do we have some deficits? I certainly understand that point, again, to what Catherine was sort of alluding to,” Singleton said.
“But I think by focusing on increasing domestic skilled development, you can decrease the furtherance of those deficits by virtue of saying, you know what, we’re going to spend more of our time, more of our dollars educating our own citizens to compete for these jobs versus saying, ‘Let’s increase to 100,000 and maybe even more for employers to bring in individuals from India,’ which is a predominant country where many of them come from,” Singleton added. “I don’t agree with that at all. And I think folks in the MAGA world have every right to be angry with Vivek and Elon Musk.”
In defense of H-1B visas, Musk simply responded “correct” to an X user’s claim that a slowdown in skilled immigration would ultimately hinder American innovation. Ramaswamy, however, elaborated in a post, saying that American culture uplifts “mediocrity over excellence.”
“Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy posted.
According to the Department of Labor, the visas allow employers to hire skilled foreign workers and authorize “the temporary employment of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in the U.S.,” making it one of the largest visa categories in the country.
Since Musk’s involvement in Trump’s campaign, Democrats have intensified their criticism of the tech CEO, especially after his opposition to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s original 1,574-page continuing resolution (CR). The CR, which included provisions potentially costing hundreds of billions of dollars, was eventually revised and passed. However, leading Democrats, like Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, referred to the billionaire as “President Musk.”
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