When Mark Halperin asked if the seven-second delay was working prior to offering his observation on President Obama's performance at his press conference of yesterday, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski seemed to assume he was joking, and invited the normally mild-mannered pundit to proceed.
But it immediately became obvious that the joke was on the Morning Joe hosts, because when he spoke, Halperin said of Obama "I think he was kind of a d--k yesterday." As evidenced in the screengrab, Mika and Joe reacted with shocked amusement.
View video after the jump.
Watch Halperin beat the director, finger hovering over the delay, to the punch!
MARK HALPERIN: Do we have the seven-second delay today? I want to characterize how I thought the President behaved.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: We have it. We can use it--right [Executive Producer] Alex?
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, sure, come on, take a chance. Have faith.
BRZEZINSKI: Let's see what happens.
SCARBOROUGH: I'm behind you. You fall down, I'm gonna catch you.
BRZEZINSKI: And the precedent has been set on the show, so you're good [a reference to Joe dropping an f-bomb back in 2008, leading to the installation of the seven-second delay].
HALPERIN: I thought he was kind of a d--k yesterday.
SCARBOROUGH: Oh my God. Delay that! Delay that! What are you doing? I can't believe you--I was joking! Don't do that! Did we delay that?
Halperin went on to explain that in his tough talk about Republicans, he thought PBO was "posturing" for the benefit of his base, while damaging any lingering trust and mutual confidence with the Republican leaders necessary to reach agreement on a deal preventing a government debt default.
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