It look less than twenty minutes for the Tuesday edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe to reach the conclusion that President Trump was just like Hitler. The show then called Republicans hypocrites for blasting Democratic Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar's anti-Semitic tweets.
In a discussion about the wall and Trump's El Paso rally, MSNBC political commentator Mike Barnicle said that the wall was, "a metaphor for Donald Trump's Presidency" and a symbol of hate and fear. Barnicle ranted: "...it becomes fear of the other and it becomes fear of brown people." Co-host Joe Scarborough added, "It's about the brown people that Donald Trump thinks do not belong in America." Scarborough's evidence was a tweet in which Trump supposedly called for keeping Latin Americans out of the United States, but a search of Trump's Twitter feed over the last couple of days show no such tweets. The closest one being, "Gallup Poll: Open Borders will potentially attract 42 million Latin Americans. This would be a disaster for the U.S. We need the Wall now!"
Scarborough then recalled various campaign proposals Trump made regarding Muslim bans and registries. The fact that a Muslim registry never happened and that the Muslim ban was not a Muslim ban was not of concern to the supposedly factually serious Scarborough, who said, "We said at the time this sounds a lot like Germany in 1933, there's a reason because in Germany in 1933 there were certain leaders that also focused on the other."
Scarborough then transitioned to attacking Republicans, especially Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for alleged hypocrisy over their reaction to Omar's tweets about AIPAC. Last week Morning Joe attacked Republicans for daring to criticize Ralph Northam over his yearbook and blackface scandal.
Scarborough wondered where Kevin McCarthy and "so-called conservative commentators on the far-right" were when Donald Trump was talking, "about banning 1.5 billion people from entering the United States of America because of the God that they worshiped."
The morning show panel then praised Democrats for condemning Omar's tweets and continued to wonder where the Republican outrage had been over Trump's Charlottesville comments or his comments about Indiana Judge Gonzalo Curiel's Mexican heritage, ignoring all the criticism Trump got for those comments. Willie Geist pointed out that individual Republicans had criticized Trump in the past, but that still did not compare to Democrats' response yesterday, conveniently ignoring all the Democrats who defended Omar. Unlike Republicans, who have kicked Iowa Representative Steve King off of committees for his recent offensive comments. Omar still has her seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Scarborough ended up begging Democrats to kick Northam out of the party, because having him remain a Democrat would limit the party's ability to call Trump a racist.
The segment about anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party was as much about Republicans as it was about Democrats and the only reason it was that balanced was because Noah Rothman pointed out that it was not Omar's first offense and that the reason Omar was not getting the Northam treatment was because Democrats would also have confront Rashida Tlaib's "dual loyalty" comments and Maxine Waters' associations with Louis Farrakhan.
Here is a transcript for the February 12 show:
6:17 AM ET
MIKE BARNICLE: Joe, I know I don't have to explain this to you of all people, but for everyone else out there, the wall is kind of a metaphor for Donald Trump's Presidency. The foundation of the wall is hate, it's fear…
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yep
BARNICLE: … As you build his wall over the course of his political career, you build on that hate and that fear and it becomes fear of the other and it becomes fear of brown people and fear of caravans, and fear of invasions, and fear of MS-13. That's the root of Trump's Presidential Election and that's going to be the root of his reelection campaign.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And he said it and in fact he said it yesterday in a tweet: “We need to keep people from Latin America out of here.” It's about the brown people that Donald Trump thinks do not belong in America. You could look at all of his immigration policies, you can look at his campaign back in early December 2015 Mika, when he talked about the Muslim registry, when he talked about the Muslim ban. We said at the time this sounds a lot like Germany in 1933, there's a reason because in Germany in 1933 there were certain leaders that also focused on the other. This time it was the Muslims
BRZEZINSKI: It terrible.
SCARBOROUGH: Which by the way, I know we're going to talk next block about the representative who made the horrific anti-Semitic remarks. I just find it curious that all the Republicans that were yesterday attacking her for her horrific anti-Semitic remarks, which she apologized for. I don't think I remember Kevin McCarthy calling out Donald Trump when he called for a Muslim registry in the United States of America in 2015 and 2016. I don't think I heard from any of those self-righteous Republicans, or so-called conservative commentators on the far right when Donald Trump talked about banning 1.5 billion people from entering the United States of America because of the God that they worshiped. It was sick. And it was every bit of racist and hateful as what anybody said yesterday. And, by the way, you want to check my cred on the topic of Israel? Seriously, don't even go there. You will lose. Check my voting record out on Israel. It's an absolute joke, Mika. These people are hypocrites. Where was Kevin McCarthy when Donald Trump talked about the Muslim registry, where was Kevin McCarthy when Donald Trump talked about banning 1.5 million people coming from America because they prayed not to the wrong God, they prayed to the God of Abraham just like Kevin McCarthy claims to pray to the God of Abraham.
…
NOAH ROTHMAN: It was strong and it was desirable. Unfortunately for Representative Omar, this is her second apology for anti-Semitic remarks in as many months. She had previously said that Israel had hypnotized the world and defended those comments, said, “I don’t know what’s especially wrong with them or offensive about them.” She got an education, apologized and has since stepped on another land mine. The reason why Democrats have not applied the Northam Standard here is because it would be much more broadly applied. The Northam Standard is essentially a morally unambiguous stand that says any act of bigotry or prejudice attributable to ignorance or social desirability bias or otherwise no matter how long ago it happened is intolerable. The reason they cannot apply this to Omar in this case is one: it would truncate the caucus, but B: it would be applied to Representative Rashida Tlaib who said that American Representatives in the Republican conference are guilty of having a dual loyalty essentially by saying they forgot what country they represent in defense of a BDS resolution against an organization that tries to delegitimize Israeli institutions, public and private. That they have members including Maxine Waters, who is a committee chair who have a relationship with Minister Louis Farrakhan, who is an outright anti-Semite, and they have just recently abandoned, the Democratic National Committee, has recently disassociated from the Women’s March, which is staffed by at least two individuals who are engaged in an anti-Semitic row just two months ago. So, this is a bigger problem I think than Representative Omar and the statement while saying she apologizes and we fully accept her apology is an attempt to get out of a bad news cycle and not necessarily achieve as you say, healing and reconciliation.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, you know Willie, again, it was about as strong of a statement as I've seen. I haven’t seen the Republicans stand united against Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim comments, against Donald Trump’s defense of neo-Nazis, against his moral equivocation white supremacists, on Donald Trump's attacking an Indiana judge because his parents were from Mexico, saying that he could not be unfair. All of the racist garbage, I've never heard the Republican Party once united in any of those instances. We saw yesterday and we also have seen Nancy Pelosi push back against some of the -- let's just say we've seen her push back time and again when people have tried to drag them too far out of the centers.
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, we’ve seen individual Republicans come out in the moment at Charlottesville or during the proposed Muslim ban during the campaign and condemn it, but as you say not a concerted from the party like we saw yesterday.
…SUSAN PAGE: And I think the Democrats have been trying to make a very clear contrast with President when it comes to expressions of outrage and opposition when members do things like acknowledge having worn blackface or repeat stereotypes, damaging stereotypes about Jewish people or accused of sexual misconduct, sometimes it's hard, you know, you end up pushing back against members of the Congress or the Democratic Party who are either important or maybe about to be important. But I think it is one effect of the Trump Administration that Democrats feel that this is something they need to do. They need to have a really clear contrast.
BRZEZINSKI: Absolutely.
SCARBOROUGH: And you know Mika, it's so interesting also, I didn't hear Kevin McCarthy or any Republican Senators or any Republican House members attacking Donald Trump during his campaign with his anti-Semitic tropes. Remember The Star of David next to Hillary Clinton? Do you remember that? Do you remember the other anti-Semitic tropes that he flirted with that throughout the campaign? Do you remember that?
BRZEZINSKI: Yep. I sure do
SCARBOROUGH: Look at that. Let's keep that up for a second. Let's keep that up for a second.
Do we have -- hey, Alex, could you show us the side by side criticism of Kevin McCarthy with Donald Trump when he did that anti-Semitic trope? Do we have that on file
ALEX KORSON [MORNING JOE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER]: We could but one side would be blank if we did.
BRZEZINSKI: Because there was not one.
SCARBOROUGH: What about Paul Ryan? Did we have Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell? Do we have a side by side on that? I'd love to see the attacks when Donald Trump made an anti-Semitic attack against Hillary Clinton. Do we have that side by side?
KORSON: Not ready. We'll look to see if anybody are available.
SCARBOROUGH Could you look for that? It would be really good. There are some other anti-Semitic tropes obviously that Donald Trump did during the campaign. I don't know Mika, I'm crazy, just kind of crazy. When I think you preach moral equivocation between neo-Nazis and those opposing neo-Nazis, that’s sort of anti-Semitic, too, isn't it? One final thought too. While we keep talking about Ralph Northam, it just occurred to me last night while watching this rally, there can just be no moral equivocation between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats have to be able to talk about Charlottesville in 2020 without Ralph Northam being Governor there-- a Democratic Governor. He's not leaving, okay, Democrats. He's not leaving. You need to kick him out of his party, you need to kick him out of his party this week, let him govern as an independent between now and 2020. But you cannot have that man who still doesn't get it sitting as a Democratic Governor in a swing state. Kick him out of your party this week. I know you've all condemned him. You've done all the right things. He ain't leaving. If you can't impeach him, kick him out of the Democratic Party this week. There can be no moral equivocation when running against Donald Trump in any state in 2020
