MSNBC's Joe Scarborough bashed Elon Musk for spreading misinformation about his wife and co-host.
Mika Brzezinski had wondered aloud last week during a broadcast whether some "guardrails" could be set up to prevent Musk from completing a hostile takeover of Twitter, and social media users shared a 2017 video clip of the "Morning Joe" co-host discussing Donald Trump's efforts to undermine media credibility to allow his false claims to flourish.
“I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he’s trying to undermine the media, trying to make up his own facts," Brzezinski said in that clip, "and it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think, and that is our job.”
Brzezinski later clarified her on-air comments, saying she meant to say the media's job was to prevent the president from making up his own facts, but Twitter users unearthed the clip and falsely claimed she was discussing Musk -- who then approvingly shared one of the posts.
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"I just told Mika, [on] Twitter, when people are lying, I say, just never mind, just let it go," Scarborough said. "But then we find out that it was so widespread, the lying, that they took this video from five years ago that was taken out of context five years ago even, but it was trending. Then we find out the Associated Press has done a fact check on it, because Elon Musk joins in, which tells you what is a sewage dump Twitter would be if Elon Musk took it over."
"He jumps in and, like, retweets something that spreads this lie with smiley faces," Scarborough added.