On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, the premier liberal morning show on MS NOW, host Joe Scarborough pushed more liberal election fears with less than a week left until the election and heavily pushed the conspiracy theory that Elon Musk hacked voting machines in the 2024 election. He asked Democratic Congressman Jim Himes what Democrats were doing to prepare for “these five trillionaires” “trying to do what they can to hack the results.”
Scarborough led off the question with Himes and asked, “Are Democrats concerned?” He added, “Have you heard any concern about voting systems possibly being hacked into?”
Then, Scarborough pushed further in this questioning and read quotes that he claimed proved there might have been some kind of plot by Musk, in a continuation of a new Musk obsession, quoting Trump and Musk’s ex-girlfriend in an anti-Musk documentary by Alex Gibney:
In opposite world on Wednesday, Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough played into conspiracies that Elon Musk hacked voting machines in the 2024 election, and feared there could be hacking of voting machines in the midterm elections.
In Scarborough fashion, he said, “So, not saying Musk… pic.twitter.com/2LnF8KhgYv— Nick (@nspin310) October 28, 2026
And I want to read you a few quotes here. Donald Trump on January 19th, 2025, on the eve of his inauguration, thanked Musk for Pennsylvania and said, quote, “He knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote-counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. So it was pretty, pretty good. So thank you, Elon.”
And then his former girlfriend said in Alex Gibney's documentary about Musk that he told her before the election that he would unleash, quote, “An anomaly in the matrix to influence the outcome of the election.
After setting up his election conspiracy claims, Scabrroorugh tried to distance himself from the things he just said, and stated, “Now, this could all be wild speculation. It's in the documentary, and those claims obviously have not been verified.”
Then came the “but”: ”But Donald Trump, when he made those statements on this on the 19th of January, certainly raised a lot of questions, and it almost seemed like he wanted people to think that he had done something to interfere with the election.”
He later continued to imply he was not saying Musk hacked the 2024 election, before then claiming the 2026 midterms could be interfered with or hacked:
So, not saying Musk did. I'm not saying any of that, but you have people that have extraordinary power in being able to hack into systems that they want to hack into with AI.
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What are Democrats doing to prepare to make sure that this is a fair and free election, and that you're not going to have these five trillionaires, as you say, trying to do what they can to hack the results?
In response, Congressman Himes gave slight credence to the claims and showed fear of possible hacking capabilities of new systems, before Scarborough continued to insist on the possibilities of hacking and asked, “What is he doing now that he's got the 4 or 5 AI companies completely in his pocket?”
Himes gave more assurances and said there were systems to check for anomalies, before Scbarotruhg said he thought paper ballots were “a good idea because we’re moving into a strange new world.” But then, again, Scbarough continued to push on the election hacking theory, that he assured he was “not saying any of this happened,” but still asked, “So Democrats are alert to that?”
After Himes said Democrats were ready, Mika Brzezinski chimed in to close the interview and added, “A lot of vigilance on election day.”
As the midterm election neared, Morning Joe decided to push more debunked 2024 election conspiracies and fearmonger even more about next week’s elections to its liberal viewers, who are used to the election conspiracies at this point.
The transcript is below. Click "expand":
MS NOW’s Morning Joe
October 28, 2026
8:03:41 AM Eastern
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JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, let me ask you, are Democrats concerned? Have you heard any concern about voting systems possibly being hacked into? And I want to read you a few quotes here. Donald Trump on January 19th, 2025, on the eve of his inauguration, thanked Musk for Pennsylvania and said, quote, “He knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote-counting computers. And we ended up winning Pennsylvania like in a landslide. So it was pretty, pretty good. So thank you, Elon.”
And then his former girlfriend said in Alex Gibney's documentary about Musk that he told her before the election that he would unleash, quote, “An anomaly in the matrix to influence the outcome of the election.”
Now, this could all be wild speculation. It's in the documentary, and those claims obviously have not been verified. But Donald Trump, when he made those statements on this on the 19th of January, certainly raised a lot of questions, and it almost seemed like he wanted people to think that he had done something to interfere with the election.
So, not saying Musk did. I'm not saying any of that, but you have people that have extraordinary power in being able to hack into systems that they want to hack into with AI. I'm curious, what are the Democrats doing to ensure – We've seen the hacking of the FEC this past week? They're going to make this election far less transparent than any others as far as last-minute contributions to campaigns.
What are Democrats doing to prepare to make sure that this is a fair and free election, and that you're not going to have these five trillionaires, as you say, trying to do what they can to hack the results?
REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT): Yeah. I mean, first, let's step back a second here. This is not a Democratic thing. Free and fair elections, you know, should not be a party thing. This is an American thing.
Secondly, you know, these models, these frontier models, are showing unbelievable hacking capabilities. So, you can't dismiss what you're saying. Joe, I can tell you this. We've never seen a successful hack of the election technology. Of course, Donald Trump says what he does because his whole thing is to make you believe that elections are not secure so that when he loses, he can say it was rigged. This is the playbook he does over and over again.
SCARBOROUGH: Also, as John Heilemann says, everything Donald Trump says is either projection or confession. Right? And the question is, if he's thinking that way about the Democrats who haven't done it, you know, what is he doing now that he's got the 4 or 5 AI companies completely in his pocket?
HIMES: You can't - Look, you can't rule it out. The last thing I would tell you on this: 49 of the 50 states have paper records of the ballots. Right. Except for Louisiana, looking at you, Speaker Johnson, except for Louisiana, every other state in the union has a paper backup. So, let's just imagine that Elon Musk or whoever can pull off something they've never pulled off before and get in and change the vote totals. It would be relatively easy to go back and check that against the actual paper.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, it's interesting that Republicans have always wanted the paper ballots. I've always thought it was a good idea because we're moving into a strange new world. And again, I'm not saying any of this happened, even though Donald Trump wanted us to believe that it happened. But anything is possible. So Democrats are alert to that?
HIMES: Sure, sure. And I mean, one of the scary things is we have an organization in the federal government, it's called CISA. It's designed to look for that kind of stuff. No surprise CISA was gutted when Donald Trump took office. They fired the head. They don't have a director. They fired about a third of the people. So, you know, I can't tell you that what you're talking about is not possible. I can tell you it hasn't happened in the past, and we don't see foreign powers in any way planning it any time in the future.
But again, those paper ballots give us some reason to believe that even if there is meddling, we can go back and rebuild. What happened?
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: A lot of vigilance on election day. Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning.
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