The vicissitudes of election coverage over the past year have made one thing certain: Morning Joe has been on an emotional rollercoaster with Republican nominee Donald Trump. In late 2015 and early 2016, Trump was regularly featured on the show and praised for his unprecedented primary performance. Now, as Trump’s favorability plummets in the polls, so too does his favorability among the Morning Joe hosts.
On January 4, 2016, just over six months ago, host Mika Brzezinski spoke out against the mainstream media’s inability to “objectively report” on Trump:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Reporters are supposed to be [air quotes] objective. And they ooze with a lack of objectivity when they're covering him [Trump].
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's unbelievable.
BRZEZINSKI: You can sort of see it in their kind of like smiling, sort of slyly and uncomfortably and almost snarkily while they're reporting on his rallies. Cause they can't take him seriously. They can't say, you know what? There are a lot of people who would say that this could be a very dangerous statement, but if you would look at the crowd behind us, this is exactly what they want to hear. They can't even say that with conviction. They just can't do it. It's like their skin is crawling.
On January 29, 2016, fellow host Joe Scarborough went so far as to compare Trump’s plane landing in Des Moines to that of the Pope arriving in the war-torn Middle East:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: …We were going over homework and we turned on the TV and I'm glad I did. It was Trump's plane landing in Des Moines. And I swear to God –
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It was unbelievable.
SCARBOROUGH: It was like the pope had landed with the—
NICOLLE WALLACE: Probably a nicer plane.
SCARBOROUGH: -- with the Middle East peace pact to end 3,000 years of war. It was-- I’m just following up what Cokie said. The grand spectacle of it all was every bit as remarkable as the story Heilemann told in Iowa –
BRZEZINSKI: And he planned it.
Fast forward to Scarborough on Morning Joe, Monday, June 20, 2016:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Of course, he had been talking about a Muslim registry. He's even talked in the past about making Muslims carry cards. Sounds a lot like Nazi Germany. Why don't you just put a patch right on their shoulder? And then started talking about getting guns in the hands of people and nightclubs at 2:00 A.M.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: A position so extreme that even the NRA had to come out and call him out on that. This is -- there is no pivot.
BRZEZINSKI: No.
SCARBOROUGH: And it continues and that's why the GOP appears to be in open rebellion right now.
It is reprehensible to suggest that Trump’s words sound a lot like “Nazi Germany.” As outrageous as it sounds, this is a recurring theme on Morning Joe. Last week on the show, Huffington Post senior politics editor Sam Stein equated Trump’s comments on mosque surveillance to that of Japanese internment camps from WWII.
In January, Brzezinski and Scarborough criticized the mainstream media for “oozing with a lack of objectivity” with respect to Trump. In March, they even put together a special video montage that championed their “objective” analysis above other networks. Now, in June, after months of positive coverage, the fair-weather friends at Morning Joe are oozing with a surplus of subjectivity.
Gone are the days where MSNBC condemns other networks for failing to objectively report on Donald Trump. The cable network is the leader of the anti-Trump brigade, and there is no end in sight.
View Full Transcript Here:
06-20-16 MSNBC Morning Joe
06:02:03 AM – 06:04:11 AMJOE SCARBOROUGH: But Mika, let's talk politics very quickly. For those who were hoping that there was going to be some turnaround, some pivot for Donald Trump this weekend, I wrote it down.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: He talked about profiling mosques.
BRZEZINSKI: Mm-hmm.
SCARBOROUGH: Of course, he had been talking about a Muslim registry. He's even talked in the past about making Muslims carry cards. Sounds a lot like Nazi, Germany. Why don't you just put a patch right on their shoulder? And then started talking about getting guns in the hands of people and nightclubs at 2:00 A.M.
BRZEZINSKI: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: A position so extreme that even the NRA had to come out and call him out on that. This is -- there is no pivot.
BRZEZINSKI: No.
SCARBOROUGH: And it continues and that's why the GOP appears to be in open rebellion right now.
BRZEZINSKI: Well, it seems so. And by the way, there was a cop in the nightclub. It did not really help the situation, given the gun that he had. Donald Trump's complaints about party unity come amid newly revealed plans to stop his nomination from delegates to next month's convention. Anti-Trump delegates, many of them former Ted Cruz supporters, hope to change party rules that would allow them to vote for whomever they want. The change would come in the rules committee, chaired by ex-congresswoman, Enid Mickelson of Utah, along with Ron Kaufman, an ally of Mitt Romney and the Bush family. Mickelson has been critical of Trump in recent weeks telling local leaders, “Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump are going to be people that we point our children toward and say, I want you to be just like them when you grow up.” Responding to the heightened speculation, the RNC communications director put out a statement. “There is no organized effort, strategy, or leader of this so-called movement. It is nothing more than a media creation and a series of tweets.” But last night, supporters in a group calling itself "Free the delegates" claimed several hundred delegates are behind them. And that they will raise money for a staff. On "Meet the Press," house speaker and convention chairman, Paul Ryan, addressed brewing signs of a rebellion, while trump shared his thoughts on multiple platforms.
