There’s a reason even MSNBC executives decided to keep Morning Joe off the air — in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt of President Donald Trump.
They were terrified that Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski or any other of their regular guests would call Trump a “threat” to democracy, label him “fascist” or even compare him to “Hitler.”
On Monday, CNN reported: “A person familiar with the matter told CNN that the decision was made to avoid a scenario in which one of the show’s stable of two dozen-plus guests might make an inappropriate comment on live television that could be used to assail the program and network as a whole.”
Their instincts were correct. It’s happened a lot.
The following are just 14 of the worst instances (via the MRC’s archive) of the Morning Joe cast and crew attacking “Hitler” Trump and his supporters as a bunch of “fascists” who will “end” democracy:
Biden Botched the Debate But At Least He’s Not a Fascist with a “Cold, Vile and Merciless Heart”
“The choice is one terribly bad night versus a decade of destruction to our core beliefs, our democratic values, and, yes, our Constitution. Someone who stumbled over his words for 90 minutes versus someone who lied to the American people over and over again. A man slowed down by a cold versus a man with a cold, vile, and merciless heart. I think in the days and weeks ahead as we move away from this debate, clarity will hopefully set in. For me, Joe Biden is still the man for this moment.”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, July 1, 2024.
Must Vote for Biden, “Authoritarian” Trump Is a “Threat to American Democracy”
“The thing I don’t understand is, understanding that this guy is [Donald Trump] an authoritarian, understanding the dangers that he presents, and then saying, ‘Well, I can’t stand Joe Biden either. ….I hate his policies. I’m going to just write in a vote.’ Well, if you feel like democracy is on the line, if you feel there is an authoritarian in waiting, what is so offensive about voting for a man who’s presided over the strongest economy in the world?...I’m grateful that Republicans like Paul Ryan are not voting for Donald Trump….I just wonder how you can say he’s an authoritarian, he’s a threat to American democracy….I’m not going to vote for the one guy that can keep him out of office.”
— Host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 13, 2024.
Republicans Reinforcing Trump’s “Violent Anti-Democratic Ways”
“Our democracy is a privilege. It is fragile, and it is a privilege and Republican leaders following Donald Trump’s autocratic tendencies are validating and reinforcing his violent anti-democratic ways on such a grand scale….They almost remind me, of sort, of the entitled children of America’s democracy. Entitled because they don’t care what it took to build it. Unappreciative of the sacrifice that it took to get here and emboldened for their own advancement of power. So, I hope they watch today [D-Day commemoration] and open their hearts to the concept of democracy rather than their own anti-democratic road to power.”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 6, 2024.
This Might Be the “Last Election in American History”
“The cowardice of the administration, and, unfortunately, on these elite colleges, having people that are now running these elite colleges on faculty boards that….burned down college campuses in the 1960s, that were responsible for the election in part of Richard Nixon in 1968 because of the chaos on college campuses, because of the chaos in Chicago….They gave America Richard Nixon and five more years of war….Let’s see if they’re now going to elect Donald Trump for, I don't know, maybe the last election in American history.”
— Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, April 29, 2024.
Trump Supporters Are Voting for “Tyranny”
“I hope the people that are voting for Trump in these primaries enjoy the tyranny that may be coming to this country, because the tyranny is what it’s about….He doesn’t believe in women’s rights. He believes women needed to be punished….Where is he on any rights? I think about Obamacare, the 20 some million people that have Obamacare now, he’s determined to get rid of it.”
— Former MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, January 16, 2024.
If Elected, Trump Will “Execute” As Many People As He Can Get Away With!
“When people go, ‘Oh, you can’t compare him to past Nazi leaders, you can’t compare him to this past Nazi leader or that past fascist leader, because he hasn’t done.’ — well, what hasn’t he done? He hasn’t done the things that the American judicial system did not allow him to do last time, but may very well allow him to do this time….The only thing that stood between him and the destruction of American democracy was the federal judiciary. He will do, he will get away with, he will imprison, he will execute whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country.”
— Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, November 21, 2023.
Trump Will Wipe Out the “Judiciary” and “Free Press”
“I always tell people, if you want to see what Donald Trump is going to do if he gets reelected, don’t think about him lining up people against the wall and having them shot. Just see what [Viktor] Orban has done in Hungary where he’s bragged about having illiberal democracy, and he’s wiped out the judiciary, he’s wiped out the free press. And Anne [Applebaum], I suppose, that’s probably what Donald Trump will look for as a blueprint if he gets elected again.”
— Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, October 23, 2023.
Trump Is a “Monster” Like Bin Laden, Will End Democracy If Elected
“From time to time, America faces threats from monsters who want to destroy our democracy. That happened in 1861 with the Confederacy. Abraham Lincoln and Northern soldiers and Northern voters came to our rescue, saved the Union. The same thing happened in 1933….Franklin Roosevelt came to power, saved our economic system. Pearl Harbor, 1941, we were bombed. Our system was very much in danger, our democracy, many people were giving it up and saying that the democracy had seen its last days. Franklin Roosevelt helped put a coalition together at the last minute to save democracy and freedom around the world. 9/11/2001, Osama bin Laden and other terrorists hated our democracy, tried to destroy it. You see where I’m going. What we see in this indictment is that on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump, just like those other threats to American democracy, tried to destroy our system….Donald Trump, threatening to do it all again but even more effectively, saying he’s going to institute a presidential dictatorship, that we may assume is going to take our democracy away.”
— MSNBC presidential historian Michael Beschloss on Morning Joe, August 2, 2023.
A Joe Manchin Third Party Run Would Elect a “Fascist” Republican President
“Do you think he really wants to help a fascist get elected president? Because that will be his legacy for the rest of his life. [West Virginia Democratic Senator] Joe Manchin helped elect a fascist.”
— Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, July 18, 2023.
Vote For “Constitutionalist” Biden Over “Seditionist” Trump
“We have a pretty clear choice in this political season. We can choose a constitutionalist, a party that has been pretty faithful to the Constitution, which is the party of the incumbent president. Or, we can favor a party that has been shockingly but persistently supportive of a insurrectionist [Donald Trump] or a seditionist….It’s pretty basic. Do you want a constitutionalist [Joe Biden] or do you want an insurrectionist?”
— MSNBC presidential historian Jon Meacham on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 23, 2023.
If Trump Wins Democracy Could Be “Over!” The “American Experiment At an End”
“We’re in a fight for American democracy, and he’s [Donald Trump] becoming more and more explicit on how he wants to take American democracy down!...One year from now, it can be over. American democracy can be over. Donald Trump one year from now could win. He’s told us what he’s going to do. So when I say American democracy is going to be over, I haven’t said this. Donald Trump is the guy that said it. He’s the one talking about executing generals that are not loyal enough to him. Or a guy that's talking about terminating the Constitution if it gets in the way of his power. He’s a guy that’s talking about taking off news networks that he disagrees with. He’s the guy that’s talking about prosecuting and putting in jail people who disagree with him….So a year from now, it can all be over. The American experiment at an end. One. Year. From. Now.”
— Co-host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, December 18, 2023.
Trump Win 2024 Win = It’s the End of America, As We Know It
“Donald Trump has instilled such fear in other Republican candidates that they go right up to the trip wire of answering the question of if he does indeed, God forbid, become President of the United States again, it poses a threat to national security, and a threat to the larger existence of the United States of America, as we know it?”
— MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, November 18, 2022.
Please Vote Democrat to Stop the “Rise” of Trump’s “Fascist” America
“It could be argued that today’s Democrats are too weak, too fragile, too woke, too elitist, too disconnected from the realities of working Americans, and yet the Democratic Party is the world’s last best hope against fascism against an extreme autocratic anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-contraception, anti-freedom collection of fascists who dominate the Trump wing of today’s Republican Party….They’re claiming control over your bodies, your health, your life…..What does Donald Trump’s America look like?...It looks like a 13-year-old rape and incest victim being ordered by the state to have a forced birth of her rapist’s baby….For all the Democratic Party’s flaws, they’re the only party that can stem this continued rise of fascism. Register and vote. Work toward an overwhelming majority that can protect your body, protect your freedoms, and just may save our country.”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, June 27, 2022.
Exploiting Holocaust Remembrance Day To Slam “Neo-Fascist” Republicans
“These 2022 elections, they’re not a referendum on Joe Biden. They’re not a referendum on Nancy Pelosi. They’re not a referendum on Chuck Schumer. They’re really a referendum on the Republican Party….Republican voters are going to have to decide where they want to go. Do they want to move back towards the views of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher? Or do they want to move in a more neo-fascist direction, a direction that they were going that of course culminated on January 6. So on this national, on this Holocaust Remembrance Day, that’s one thing I’m thinking about.”
— Host Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, April 27, 2022.
