In a dazzling display of doltish ignorance Thursday night, a New York Times reporter and an MSNBC news anchor demonstrated to the world that they can’t do basic third-grade math.
During an MSNBC segment, host Brian Williams and New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay read a tweet stating that former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg “could have given each American $1 million and still have money left over.”
The multibillionaire dropped out of the 2020 presidential race Wednesday after his dismal Super Tuesday showing.
The tweet in question came from journalist Mekita Rivas, who has written for Glamour Magazine, Teen Vogue, and the Washington Post, among other publications.
“When I read it tonight on social media it kinda all became clear, Williams said.
The tweet reads: “Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. The U.S. population is 327 million. He could have given each American $1 million and still have money left over, I feel like a $1 million check would be life-changing for people. Yet he wasted it all on ads and STILL LOST. “Of course, the journalists were slightly off.
In reality, Bloomberg could have given one dollar to every American and had money left over. If he distributed all $500 million to all 327 million United States citizens evenly, the amount would be $1.53 per person — not a million per person with money left over.
Rivas’ Twitter account has since been set to private although she now admits in her bio, “I know, I’m bad at math.”
As Williams read Rivas’ absurd tweet, he seemed to signal that he had caught the glaring error.
“Don’t tell us if you’re ahead of us on the math,” he said. But instead of correcting the math, he declared, “it’s an incredible way of putting it.”
“It is an incredible way of putting it,” Gay agreed. “It’s true, it’s disturbing. It does suggest what we’re talking about here which is there is too much money in politics.”
This clip is just incredible. When he said “if you’re ahead of us on the math,” I thought he was about to correct the terrible math, but NO. https://t.co/kAH3GDuPNl
— Jessica O’Donnell 🏈 (@heckyessica) March 6, 2020
Gay has been a strong promoterof the NYT’s “1619 Project,” a controversial and erroneous history of Americathrough the eyes of black people.
The math-challenged journalists have been mocked relentlessly on Twitter since the broadcast aired.
“This is an NYT editorial board member and a cable news anchor repeating a tweet from a WaPo writer that is so horrifyingly wrong I honestly thought this had to be fake,” tweeted independent journalist Tim Pool. “These are the people screeching that RUSSIA is coming for you all day.”
“This was a pre-planned segment on the topic,” political strategist Seth Weathers pointed out.“They had the Twitter graphic ready to role! You hate to see it.”
“Rhetorical question: Which is more dangerous in an election: 200k dollars of Russian Facebook ads or NYT reporters on TV saying 1+1= 3?”asked conservative muckraker James O’Keefe.
“Weren’t members of the media just laughing about how they know math and those tin toothed rube voters didn’t?” conservative writer Stephen L. Miller wrote.
Perhaps the best tweetcame from TPUSA’s Benny Johnson, who pointed out the gross hypocrisy of the Never-Trump establishment class who ridicule conservative Trump supporters as ignorant rubes.
WATCH:
CLIP 1:
MSNBC & NYT, both incapable of doing 2nd grade math on-air.
CLIP 2:
CNN, NPR & NeverTrump DwarfGoblin mocking real America as "rubes” who don’t know “math & readn!’”
What a perfect illustration of the utter vacuousness and hypocrisy of the leftist 'elite.'
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 6, 2020
It’s mind-boggling that even one college-educated journalist would get the numbers so spectacularly wrong on Twitter. But two of her colleagues went on to amplify the colossal mistake on live T.V., and no one at MSNBC it.
The entire episode helps explain why liberal journalists and politicians have no trouble supporting astronomically expensive proposals like “Medicare for All” and the “Green New Deal” without raising taxes on the middle class. These are severely math-challenged individuals.