(Julianna Frieman, Headline USA) Billionaire Elon Musk called out former President Barack Obama for “deliberately pushing hoaxes” about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a surprise interview Monday on The Joe Rogan Experience.
Obama repeated false claims on Sunday at a Harris-Walz rally in Milwaukee that Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people” during an August 2017 news conference following violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Obama’s last-ditch lie—debunked by left-leaning fact-checking website Snopes seven years later—has been a frequent rallying cry among Democrats hoping to damage Trump politically.
The number of times that the Dems have deliberately pushed this hoax – a calculated lie – is unconscionable! https://t.co/ZkT0XCiS0H
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2024
Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan that Democrats are “doing all the things that they accuse Trump of doing.”
Rogan added that Democrats do so “openly.”
The SpaceX CEO acknowledged that politicians often exaggerate and bend the truth, but he said the amount of anti-Trump hoaxes Democrats lean on is over the top.
“That’s how it is with politics. But when you have deliberate, concerted, repeated pushing of hoaxes, you’re like, wait a second,” Musk continued. “Come on, man. This is too far.”
NEW: Elon Musk and Joe Rogan rip the Democratic party for spreading hoax after hoax, call out President Barack Obama.
The pair also called out YouTube for the apparent suppression of the Trump-Rogan interview.
"What the flying f**k? He doesn't give a f*ck." Musk said in… pic.twitter.com/hHzPRyAzmI
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 4, 2024
“And you’re supposed to be the good guys,” Rogan said of the Democrats.
Musk said Democrats can’t claim to be good and honest if they purposefully push disproven falsehoods.
He mentioned Snopes’s fact-check of the “very fine people” hoax, prompting Rogan to bring up Obama’s recent evocation of the lie on stage.
“What the flying f**k?” Musk exclaimed.
“He doesn’t give a f**k,” Rogan responded.
“That’s a flat-out, goddamn f**king lie,” Musk said.
When a reporter asked Trump if he puts “alt-left and white supremacists” on the “same moral plane,” Trump punted his line of questioning and recalled that “the Left” he was referring to came at the other side “with clubs” during the unrest.
“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group,” Trump said. “But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.”
The former president added that individuals were there to protest the removal of a statue.
“You had people in that group—excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures as you did,” Trump continued. “You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”
Trump condemned the Neo-Nazis and acknowledged others who were there.
“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally,” Trump added later in the same exchange. “But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
August 15, 2017: Trump called neo-Nazis very fine people after Charlottesville.
Right? Wrong.
The media deceptively cut the context of his remarks where specifically said he was NOT referring to neo-Nazis.
Instead, he was referring to the people who oppose tearing down… pic.twitter.com/83PVDdTBWd
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 17, 2024
Snopes rated the Charlottesville hoax as “False” in June, providing a full transcript of the interaction.
Julianna Frieman is a freelance writer published by the Daily Caller, Headline USA, The Federalist, and The American Spectator. Follow her on Twitter at @JuliannaFrieman.