Joe Scarborough and Nicolle Wallace went on an animated tag-team attack against Ben Carson on today's Morning Joe, accusing him of "one lie after another" and "bald-faced lies," respectively. And Scarborough emphatically denied that there is any bias behind the media's inquiries into Carson's biography.
Scarborough, Wallace and Mika Brzezinski also criticized panelist Mark Halperin for not buying into the Carson-is-lying line, with Mika sarcastically implying that Halperin had backed off Carson in anticipation of an interview with him. Denying that the current Carson kerfuffle reflects media bias. Joe cast himself as an equal-opportunity truth teller, pointing out that he had recently criticized people [hello, John Harwood] for the biased CNBC debate.
NICOLLE WALLACE: These are bald-faced lies at this point and the fact that the media is cowering after being accused of media bias is pathetic. And once again, you've got Donald Trump wielding the truth [inaudible] --
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let the two Republicans come out and say it. And again, for everybody that was offended in this industry, when I said what I said about media bias last week, this is the plus side of it. I can call BS on other Republicans when they call out media bias like this. Nicolle, this is not media bias --
WALLACE: -- This is a guy running on literally
JOE: --this is pure BS and it's one lie after another lie after another lie and he keeps getting caught and by the way, I've got to say: the media bias has run for Ben Carson up to this point because nobody has said, hey wait a second, he doesn't have a clue about policy issues, which is what the Wall Street Journal finally said today. He doesn't know anything about policy, and in his biography, he's lying, and the press has been cowering for months!
WALLACE: I still can't get over the pyramids.
JOE: The pyramids!
WALLACE: Let me just say, the story to me is the media is somehow uncomfortable saying the guy lied about everything in his biography and all he's got is his biography, and by the way the pyramids.
MARK HALPERIN: What do you consider the lies to be?
WALLACE: Well, the whole biography is coming apart.
HALPERIN: What are the lies?
WALLACE: All the details seem to be slightly off.
HALPERIN: He got some facts wrong, which they've acknowledged --
WALLACE: If all my details in my biography were slightly off, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even have this job.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Mark, Mark --
NICOLLE: I searched you. I barely know how to use the Twitter but I searched you last night to see what you had said and I was astounded that you were sort of convinced that all of the threads of the Politico story had came apart.
. . .
JOE: Are you now doing defense for Ben Carson? It's one story after another, and none of them add up, Mark.
MIKA: With all due respect, do you have an interview lined up today?
