On Thursday's Morning Joe, as the group fretted over the Donald Trump administration's push to eliminate the federal Department of Education, MSNBC contributor Anand Giridharadas declared that MAGA Republicans want Americans uneducated so they won't be able to read about how bad they are for America.
Co-host Joe Scarborough recalled that conservatives have long sought to get rid of the Education Department but claimed that Republicans nowadays can't be trusted to do it the right way:
This has been a conservative goal -- like you said -- and an idea for a very long time -- but what we found over the years is -- again, the idea always was, "Give the money, the power, the authority to the states -- they would do the right things for their individual states -- legislative laboratories." That's just not happening now, especially -- again, I use Medicaid as the perfect example where you have middle class Americans and rural America who are watching their hospitals shut down, their nursing homes shut down.
He added: "You know, 50 percent of kids in rural America get their health care from Medicaid, and so, if you're going to slash funding for Medicaid to impress your base, I can't even imagine what you're going to do with education."
Giridharadas then argued that it is in the interests of Republicans for voters to be unable to read about what their agenda really is:
...I think in, in, in the modern incarnation of cutting this, they are revealing something to citizens, which is, they don't want the most educated citizenry possible because it's not helpful to them. People who can read and understand that climate change is happening are not favorable voters for them. People who can read and understand what they're doing to Medicaid, to Social Security -- what Elon Musk is doing -- the better your reading comprehension is, the more you might not like what this administration is doing. And so an educated citizenry is not in their interests, and they're coming for it.
Scarborough had no problem with his liberal guest's trash talking about Republicans as the disgruntled ex-Republican followed up by asserting that there is a "civil war" within MAGA between the Steven Bannon and Elon Musk wings.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC's Morning Joe
March 21, 2025
6:09 a.m. Eastern
JOE SCARBOROUGH: This has been a conservative goal -- like you said -- and an idea for a very long time -- but what we found over the years is -- again, the idea always was, "Give the money, the power, the authority to the states -- they would do the right things for their individual states -- legislative laboratories." That's just not happening now, especially -- again, I use Medicaid as the perfect example where you have middle class Americans and rural America who are watching their hospitals shut down, their nursing homes shut down. You know, 50 percent of kids in rural America get their health care from Medicaid, and so, if you're going to slash funding for Medicaid to impress your base, I can't even imagine what you're going to do with education.
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Yeah, I mean, I think in, in, in the modern incarnation of cutting this, they are revealing something to citizens, which is, they don't want the most educated citizenry possible because it's not helpful to them. People who can read and understand that climate change is happening are not favorable voters for them. People who can read and understand what they're doing to Medicaid, to Social Security -- what Elon Musk is doing -- the better your reading comprehension is, the more you might not like what this administration is doing. And so an educated citizenry is not in their interests, and they're coming for it.
SCARBOROUGH: It really goes to the divide, John, of MAGA -- the MAGA world. And the divide is the populist vision, right? And that populist vision is that we're going to help working Americans -- we're going to help people that elites have looked past -- we're going to help them move up to the middle class -- help them become more successful -- versus Steve Bannon's side, sort of the technocrats, the billionaire technocrats that really are running this. And so you do have the Steve Bannon versus the Elon Musk basically civil war going on inside of MAGA. And this is definitely -- this is an example again of just what Anand said, which is, you know, slash, cut, don't even think twice about who you're hurting -- what working-class Americans in red state America, blue state America -- you're hurting.
