The Media Research Center is continuing to demand that you distrust your eyes and pretend that Elon Musk didn’t do a Nazi salute. Christian Toto worked in another purported Trump “hoax” in his Feb. 1 column:
Fool Michael Rapaport once, shame on you. Fool him twice, shame on the “Atypical” alum.
Last year, Rapaport apologized for believing one of the Left’s biggest lies about President Donald Trump. Both legacy media reporters and former presidents alike said Trump called White Supremacists “fine people” following a “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.
Disgraced former President Joe Biden started his 2020 campaign with the bald lie. President Barack Obama repeated it in the 2024 campaign’s stretch run.
As we’ve documented, that wasn’t a “bald lie” — it’s a reasonable interpretation of what happened. Toto then touted more backpedaling from Rapaport:
He almost fell for another lie this week.
The actor/podcaster said he posted an image of tech mogul Elon Musk allegedly making the “Heil Hitler” salute on President Trump’s Inauguration Day. He quickly took the post down after social media followers said he was missing the larger context.
“I felt like I had been duped again,” Rapaport said on the latest episode of his podcast.
“The guy’s a spaz,” he said simply, and it’s not out of any fealty to the X owner. “I have no allegiance for Elon Musk… I got blocked by Elon Musk years ago for taking about his space rockets and that he’s a wannabe space man.
“I’m an independent contractor. I don’t get paid by nobody … I have no allegiance to anybody but myself and my heart … Nobody is off limits. No-bo-dy,” he added.
“I’ll tell you one thing, if he’s an N-word [Nazi] I want my N-words like Elon Musk. I want my N-words giving money to Israel. I want my N-words meeting [Israeli president Benjamin] Netanyahu … going to to Israel post-Oct. 7 and bearing witness … if that’s an N-word in this day and age that’s how I want my N-words.”
The supposed missing “context” of Musk’s gesture was never explained by either Rapaport or Toto.
Nicholas Fondacaro was in full kneejerk-defense mode in a Feb. 4 post:
Following their being found liable for defamation in January, CNN proclaimed in a statement that they “will of course take what useful lessons we can from this case.” But during Monday’s edition of The Lead, host Jake Tapper once again found himself embroiled in controversy when he refused to strongly push back on Democratic Senator Chris Murphy (CT) after he peddled the long-debunked hoax that billionaire Elon Musk did the “heil Hitler salute,” and other conspiracy theories.
Near the end of their interview, and while contorting his face into all manner of angry expressions, Murphy went on an unhinged rant against Musk and asserted that he had “amplified vicious anti-Semitic information on Twitter, who gave the heil Hitler salute on Inauguration Day.”
“It seems to be standard that the qualification to serve in the Trump administration is affection for racist and misogynist philosophy,” Murphy added. “So, this guy is dangerous but there seems to be people like him being peppered throughout Trump’s government.”
Fondacaro then smeared everyone who understood what Musk’s gesture looked like:
The claim that Musk had done the “heil Hitler salute” was one of the first hoaxed of the second Trump presidency peddled by the liberal media. Those living in reality, who weren’t bad faith actors, and who wanted to be honest with the American people, would admit that Musk was telling his crowd that his heart went out to them and he figuratively threw his heart to them. Of course, Tapper was none of those things.
Tapper refused to explain the truth of what Musk had done. Instead, he tried to hide behind how Musk had not tried to explain the gesture to those trying to smear him:
Why shouldn’t we want Musk to explain his gesture? This seems to be an extreme example of the right-wing tendency of being always on offense and believing that explaining yourself shows weakness.
It’s indisputable what Musk’s gesture looks like, whether he meant it or not. Fondacaro should stop trying to gaslight people by insisting Musk’s gesture didn’t look exactly what it looked like.
Alex Christy played comedy cop in a Feb. 7 post that a “Daily Show” segment used “the picture of Musk on Inauguration Day that has widely and falsely been described as him doing a Nazi salute.” Nope, Alex, that’s an accurate description of what Musk did.