Fact check: 2017 'Morning Joe' clip misrepresented in viral posts about Elon Musk

Bayliss Wagner, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: A video shows MSNBC hosts saying Elon Musk 'is trying to control how people think'

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has generated a flurry of speculation and misinformation about the future of Twitter after becoming the company's largest shareholder and offering to buy the social media platform.

In posts shared tens of thousands of times, social media users claim a video shows MSNBC hosts talking about Musk on a recent episode of "Morning Joe."

"MSNBC: 'Elon is trying to control how people think,'" reads an April 16 tweet from Market Rebellion that includes the video. "'That's our job.’”

The 42-second clip accrued more than 14 million views within four days. It has also circulated on Facebook and YouTube.

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"They said the quiet part out loud," reads the caption of an April 16 Facebook post from 1/1024th Liberty Memes. The post includes a screenshot of Market Rebellion's tweet, as well as Musk's reaction: two laughing emojis.

However, the claims are false. The segment is from February 2017 – long before Musk's takeover bid – and shows co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough discussing then-President Donald Trump.

USA TODAY reached out to Market Rebellion and other social media users who shared the claim for comment.

MSNBC segment recorded in 2017, not about Musk

The full "Morning Joe" segment was recorded Feb. 22, 2017. The hosts discussed a poll that found 43% of respondents approved of Trump while 73%were "dissatisfied" or "angry" with the federal government.

Brzezinski and Scarborough didn't mention Musk, as the Associated Press reported.

The full video shows Scarborough and Brzezinski were responding to guest Yamiche Alcindor's comment that Trump's supporters felt he was keeping his campaign promises. But this context isn't present in the clip shared on social media.

"What Yamiche just said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters who were Trump voters, and are still Trump supporters," Scarborough says in the full segment. "They go, 'Yeah, you guys are going crazy. He's doing – what are you so surprised about? He's doing exactly what he said he's going to do."

The clip in the social media posts cuts off the beginning of his sentence and starts at, "who were Trump voters, and are still Trump supporters." The viral quote comes from Brzezinski's response.

Fact check: Fake Twitter employee tweet about Elon Musk spreads online

"Well, and I think that the dangerous edges here are that he’s trying to undermine the media, trying to make up his own facts," she says in the segment. "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 – that is our job.”

This comment generated confusion at the time. In a tweet posted Feb. 22, 2017, Brzezinski said she meant that "it's the media's job to keep President Trump from making up his own facts."

Our rating: False

Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that a video shows MSNBC hosts saying, "Elon Musk wants to control what people think, and that is our job." The clip comes from a segment that was recorded in February 2017, long before Musk offered to buy Twitter. Musk was never mentioned. Instead, the hosts discussed Trump.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: 2017 MSNBC segment not about Elon Musk, Twitter