On Monday’s Morning Joe, hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski spent most of the show obsessing over various comments made by President Trump at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama last Friday. They took special umbrage, however, at Trump calling out Senator John McCain for being the deciding vote in scuttling a Republican ObamaCare repeal effort this past July. The hosts’ extremely disproportionate response was to question the humanity of both Trump and his supporters at the rally.
The segment began with a short mashup of Trump quotes from the rally, similar to other compilations that they played repeatedly throughout the morning:
DONALD TRUMP: They gave me a list of ten people that were absolute noes. These are ten Republican senators. Now John McCain’s, John McCain’s list,-
[loud booing from crowd]
TRUMP: -John McCain was not on the list, so that was a totally unexpected thing. Terrible, honestly terrible. [...] You know, John McCain came in and he went thumbs down at three o’clock in the morning, and, everybody-
[loud booing from crowd]
TRUMP: [...] That was a horrible, horrible thing that happened to the Republican Party. That was a horrible thing.
It’s not exactly a new thing to see Trump strongly criticizing McCain. Moreover, it is perfectly understandable that Trump would criticize a political action that was widely interpreted by American mainstream media outlets as being critical to “save ObamaCare,” a bill still widely unpopular with conservatives, libertarians, and independents alike. Many of those who believe that ObamaCare has been an immense and unwarranted interference in the American economy as well as a dangerous intrusion into personal liberty have wanted the law repealed for seven years now.
And yet, as Joe and Mika have made clear, it is not okay to criticize John McCain under any circumstances, even over substantive policy differences, due to his recent cancer diagnosis:
SCARBOROUGH: Speaking of horrible things,-
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah, I could think-
SCARBOROUGH: -it is absolutely unspeakable that, the lack of humanity, not only in the President of the United States, but the people in the crowd booing an American hero, who is struggling for his life right now. I think actually it just speaks for itself.
BRZEZINSKI: Yep. Say no more. That was President Trump's reaction to Senator John McCain coming out on Friday against his party’s health care bill. The President continued his attacks on McCain early Saturday morning. Quote [reading from one of Trump’s tweets]: “John McCain never had any intention of voting for this bill, which his Governor loves. He campaigned on Repeal and Replace. Let Arizona down!”
SCARBOROUGH: I think now, we could repeat the line: ‘Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?’ Again, it's John McCain-
BRZEZINSKI: Have you no marbles?
SCARBOROUGH: -struggling, fighting for his life. He’s, he, there is such a disconnect.
BRZEZINSKI: There is a real problem.
Yes, there is a serious problem here. If the American public cannot criticize politicians who are incidentally female, non-white, or seriously ill without being called sexist, racist, and inhuman, then how is any sort of substantive public policy discourse supposed to happen?
Anyone who serves in the Senate needs to be subject to the full criticism that does and must come with the weighty political responsibility that he or she possesses.
The following is a transcript of the short segment:
6:30 AM EST
(...)
DONALD TRUMP: [playing clip of Huntsville, Alabama rally] They gave me a list of ten people that were absolute noes. These are ten Republican senators. Now John McCain’s, John McCain’s list,-
[loud booing from crowd]
TRUMP: -John McCain was not on the list, so that was a totally unexpected thing. Terrible, honestly terrible. [...] You know, John McCain came in and he went thumbs down at three o’clock in the morning, and, everybody-
[loud booing from crowd]
TRUMP: [...] That was a horrible, horrible thing that happened to the Republican Party. That was a horrible thing.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Speaking of horrible things,-
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yeah, I could think-
SCARBOROUGH: -it is absolutely unspeakable that, the lack of humanity, not only in the President of the United States, but the people in the crowd booing an American hero, who is struggling for his life right now. I think actually it just speaks for itself.
BRZEZINSKI: Yep. Say no more. That was President Trump's reaction to Senator John McCain coming out on Friday against his party’s health care bill. The President continued his attacks on McCain early Saturday morning. Quote [reading from one of Trump’s tweets]: “John McCain never had any intention of voting for this bill, which his Governor loves. He campaigned on Repeal and Replace. Let Arizona down!”
SCARBOROUGH: I think now, we could repeat the line: ‘Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?’ Again, it's John McCain-
BRZEZINSKI: Have you no marbles?
SCARBOROUGH: -struggling, fighting for his life. He’s, he, there is such a disconnect.
BRZEZINSKI: There is a real problem.
SCARBOROUGH: There is such a disconnect.
BRZEZINSKI: There’s a word for it.
(...)
