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Brian Williams' Bad Math Made for a Hilarious Cable News Moment
These numbers about Mike Bloomberg's campaign don't add up
It's hard out there for a cable news anchor -- especially these days, when disinformation runs rampant. But no matter how overwhelming the current news cycle is, what happened onThe 11th Hour with Brian Williams on Thursday night was nothing short of hilarious, and Twitter is having a field day.
On Thursday's episode of the MSNBC program, anchor Brian Williams spoke with Mara Gay of the New York Times editorial board about the cost of Michael Bloomberg's now-suspended presidential campaign. According to CBS News, the former New York City mayor spent over $570 million in ads, which works out to about $18 million per each of the 31 delegates he earned on Super Tuesday.
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But when discussing what else Bloomberg could have put that money toward, Williams and Gay's math missed the mark. The two pulled up a tweet from writer Mekita Rivas that suggested Bloomberg could have used his $500 million to provide $1 million to every American with money to spare. The problem is that those numbers aren't even close to accurate. Williams even mentioned doing the math!
how did this end up on tv? pic.twitter.com/xUYIOChhKv
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) March 6, 2020
As social media users quickly pointed out, Bloomberg would have had to spend about $327 trillion to give everyone in the country that sum.
Mara Gay of the New York Times and Brian Williams of MSNBC claimed tonight that Mike Bloomberg could have given every American one million dollars and still had money left over afterwards. I didn't realize Mike Bloomberg had $327 trillion dollars 😂
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 6, 2020
I can barely add and even I know giving 327 million people a million dollars would be $327 trillion. (Okay, I asked Alexa, but still. I knew it was more than $327 million. That would be giving every one a buck.)
— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) March 6, 2020
The show's official Twitter account later issued a correction, saying, "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."
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
But the best reaction of all was that of Gay herself, who had fun with the flub and tweeted that she's planning to make an investment of her own: in a calculator.
Buying a calculator, brb 🙈
— Mara Gay (@MaraGay) March 6, 2020
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams airs weeknights on MSNBC at 11/10c.