The hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe applauded Axios CEO Jim VandeHei after he blasted Elon Musk and X in a foul-mouth meltdown.

VandeHei gave a blistering speech at the National Press Club on Thursday in Washington D.C. after he and his publication’s co-founder, Mike Allen, won the Fourth Estate award.

During his acceptance speech, the veteran journalist focused on Musk’s claim that the media has been replaced by ‘citizen journalists,’ branding the idea ‘bulls***.’

‘I hate this damn debate about “Oh, we don’t need the media,” like it’s not true!’ VandeHei said.

‘I love this country, I am a beneficiary of this country. Like some dipsh** from Wisconsin who can come and start two companies, be up here, win an award, sit next to Mikey, I’m a beneficiary of it,’ VandeHei said, referring to himself.

The Oshkosh, Wisconsin native started out at a local outlet before moving on to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post as a national political reporter.

He later co-founded Politico and is now at his current role as CEO for Axios.

VandeHei continued his rant while targeting Musk for claiming that anyone can be a journalist through social media.

‘Elon Musk sits on Twitter everyday or X today saying like, “We are the media! You are the media!” My message to Elon Musk is: Bullsh**!

‘You’re not the media, you having a blue checkmark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter anymore than me looking at your head, and seeing that you have a brain and telling you have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgeon, right?,’ VandeHei added as the crowd applauded.

VandeHei said that Musk’s claim is ‘nonsense’ because being an actual reporter ‘is hard, like really hard.’

‘You have to care, you have to do the hard work, you have to get up every single day and say “I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism.”

‘You don’t do that by popping off on Twitter, you don’t do that by having an opinion’ he continued. ‘You do it by doing the hard work.’

He also noted all of the things he loves about America, adding that it all ‘matters profoundly’.

‘There’s something about freedom, capitalism, the animal spirits of Democracy, but at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying to go to jail, maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what’s actually happening so they’re not just looking at distortion,’ he said.

He went on to say that journalists choose to do their job because ‘we love it.’

On Monday morning, the Morning Joe crew invited VandeHei on the show to congratulate him for his words about the industry as they agreed with his stance.

Co-host Joe Scarborough was visibly thrilled by what VandeHei had to say, unleashing his own foul-mouthed rant against influencers, who he said get away with lying on social media while ‘what reporters do matters.’

After Scarborough and co-host and wife, Mika Brezinski, praised VandeHei, Scarborough immediately hopped on the bandwagon, repeating the CEO’s comment he made last week about influencers ‘popping off on Twitter.’

As Scarborough grew aggravated, he dropped a curse word, leaving Brezinski speechless.

‘And like you said, this is what gets me,’ Scarborough said in reference to VandeHei’s speech. ‘If someone pops off on Twitter, or some other social media, and they lie, they make mistakes – you know what the cost of that is? Nothing. They do it again.

‘In fact, it helps them because algorithms are rigged, so you stir up sh**,’ he added, as Brezinski jumped in her chair before briefly looking away.

Scarborough told VandeHei that what he said ‘continues to need to be said’ because there is a lot of ‘garbage flying around on social media.’

He dove even deeper as he shouted out specific outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and MSNBC.

‘What The New York Times does matters. What The Wall Street Journal does matters. What Jonathan Lemire does matters. What the Financial Times does matters. What MSNBC News and MSNBC reporters do matters,’ he said.

VandeHei agreed with Scarborough, acknowledging that journalists aren’t perfect.

‘And it doesn’t mean there aren’t things that we get wrong,’ he said, adding that he got so ‘hopped up’ during his speech because of what he’s heard from reporters.

‘I listen to so many reporters who feel like the industry is going to hell. Nobody trusts them, they’re demoralized… And the truth is we don’t have time to be demoralized!

‘We don’t have time to whine, we have to do our job!

‘There is an information war out there,’ VandeHei said adding, that ‘there are still tens of millions of people who depend on great reporting.’