A viral Instagram post from November 24 claimed MSNBC host Rachel Maddow became emotional while discussing a lewd meme shared by Elon Musk on X (formerly Twitter), in which Musk joked about buying MSNBC. The post, which garnered over 24,000 likes in two days, presented a deceptively edited video to support this claim.
The video showed Maddow saying, “I think I’m going to have to hand this off,” with a chyron reading, “Breaking News: Elon Musk posts dangerous meme.” However, the clip was taken out of context and altered to mislead viewers.
The original footage dates back to 2018, during a Rachel Maddow Show segment covering a report from The Associated Press about the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the southern U.S. border. In the broadcast, Maddow struggled to maintain her composure while discussing “tender age shelters” for young children. “Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children – to at least three – put up the graphic of this. Thank you. Do we have it? No,” Maddow said, before apologizing and passing the segment to her team.
The chyron in the authentic broadcast read, “Breaking News: AP: Youngest separated kids sent to Texas ‘tender age’ shelters,” with no mention of Musk or a meme. The Guardian and other outlets widely covered Maddow’s emotional moment at the time, and she later apologized for being unable to finish the report.
The Instagram post misrepresents the situation by superimposing fabricated graphics and pairing Maddow’s 2018 reaction with Musk’s recent November 23 post on X. Musk’s meme joked about being tempted to buy MSNBC amid reports that Comcast, MSNBC’s parent company, might spin off some of its cable networks into a new entity. However, Comcast has not indicated that MSNBC is up for sale individually.
USA TODAY fact-checked the claim, confirming that the Instagram video was edited to create a false narrative. The original context of Maddow’s emotional reaction was unrelated to Musk or his post.
This incident highlights how deceptive editing can mislead viewers by repurposing old footage to fit a fabricated narrative. It serves as a reminder to verify viral content and consider its original context before drawing conclusions. Maddow has not commented on the altered video.