Watch MSNBC’s Brian Williams and NYT Editorial Board Member Both Fail Basic Math on Bloomberg Ad Spending
Pop quiz: What’s one million divided by one million?
If you answered: “one,” congratulations, you’re officially better at math than a MSNBC anchor and a New York Times editorial board member.
That’s the takeaway from a bizarre moment on Thursday nights’ The 11th Hour, where host Brian Williams and his guest, Mara Gay, both failed to see the faulty math in a tweet that incorrectly claimed Mike Bloomberg could have repurposed his $500 million presidential ad campaign budget to give $1 million check to all 327 million Americans — and still have money left over.
In fact, each American would’ve gotten $1.53.
But that didn’t let Williams — and apparently his entire, asleep-at-the-switch production team — from displaying and endorsing a completely wrong Tweet (since deleted) from blue-checked writer Mekita Rivas. Rivas, who was quickly deluged by online critics pointing out his mistake, protected his account soon after his flub got aired and cheekily amended his Twitter bio to read: “I know, I’m bad at math.”
“You see it as a possibility, if he wants to spend a billion bucks beating this guy, he could do it?” Williams asked Gay in a discussion of Bloomberg’s primary ad spending and the billionaire’s promise to continue his political ad campaign through November to defeat President Donald Trump.
“Absolutely. Somebody tweeted recently that actually with the money he’s spent, he could have given every American a million dollars,” Gay said, as Rivas’ false claim appeared on screen.
“I’ve got it. Let’s put it on the screen,” Williams said, clearly not seeing the faulty math either. “When I read it tonight on social media, it kind of all became clear. Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads. U.S. Population, $327 million. Don’t tell us if you’re ahead of us on the math,” he added, not realizing that his viewers were ahead of him on the math, because he and his guest were botching it so badly.
“He could have given each American $1 million and have had lunch money left over. It’s an incredible way of putting it,” he added.
In fact, it’s an incredibly wrong way of putting it. But Gay certainly didn’t catch on.
“It’s an incredible way of putting it. It’s true,” Gay said incredibly, as, still, no one on the show stepped in to shut down this ongoing, embarrassing display of innumeracy. “It does suggest, you know, what we’re talking about here, which is there is too much money in politics. It makes it difficult because what we want in politics — the point is to have competition, and the point is to have the best candidates and have people from all backgrounds be able to run. So that gives people real choice, not just super PACS and dark money flooding elections or even just a single billionaire with good intentions.”
Or even journalists with good intentions — but lousy arithmetic skills.
Williams corrected 10 minutes later.
“[T]urns out Mara and I got the same grades at math,” Williams said sheepishly, having some fun with his gaffe. “I’m speaking of the tweet we both misinterpreted. He could give each American $1. Again, I didn’t have it in high school. I don’t have it tonight. I stand corrected. Sorry about that. The tweet is wrong.”
And later, MSNBC show’s official account added an mea culpa, noting that the broadcast had “quoted a tweet that relied on bad math” and that the show “corrected the error after the next commercial break and have removed it from later editions of tonight’s program.”
Tonight on the air we quoted a tweet that relied on bad math. We corrected the error after the next commercial break and have removed it from later editions of tonight’s program. We apologize for the error.
— 11th Hour (@11thHour) March 6, 2020
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
