In the wake of Tuesday night’s heated Presidential Debate between President Trump, Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, the hosts of Morning Joe found themselves in a whirlwind of mixed emotions. Unsure whether to feel happy or sad, Mika Brzezinski started with celebratory remarks about Joe’s performance before criticizing his handlers for not being protective enough: “Joe Biden's getting great reviews. He did great last night. He handled it really well. And when he was allowed to talk, he sounded great. But why in the world [would] his team expose him to lower himself to a display like that ever again?”
Faithful husband and co-host Joe Scarborough predictably agreed: “That said, voters overwhelmingly thought last night that Joe Biden won that debate. Donald Trump set himself on fire in front of 100 million people last night during that debate. He turned off women. He turned off independents. He turned off the same suburban voters that are turned off by Mitch McConnell trying to jam through a Supreme Court justice in the dying days of the Trump administration.”
Sounds like Trump is helping Biden defeat him, right? Wrong! Brzezinski wasn’t comfortable with letting Donald have two more nights to shoot himself in the foot and boost Biden’s numbers: “Well, he makes a joke of our democracy as he's blowing himself up, so that's the part where -- if I were the Biden campaign, I'd say, we're not doing this to our country.” Perhaps MSNBC should give her the next month off to work as a consultant for the Biden campaign.
Unsurprisingly, Scarborough also liked the idea of cancelling the future debates. Willie Geist, however, suggested to Scarborough that Chris Wallace should have taken even quicker, albeit unconventional action to stop Trump from hurting himself: “But I think you're right, it's on the commission now to say, when a candidate has that two minutes -- it's supposed to be two minutes of Joe Biden speaking alone or two minutes of President Trump speaking alone. Just cut the other guy's mic.”
After ruminating on this idea for nearly an hour, Brzezinski erupted in robust agreement: “There were many options that the moderator could have taken. He could have stopped the debate. He could have made the men walk off stage and come back. He could have asked audio -- he could have turned around and said, ‘I'd like to know who's running audio. I need you to turn off Donald Trump's mic, because I would like to hear Joe Biden speak for two minutes uninterrupted.’ He did none of that.” If only she had been the moderator.
About half an hour later, Scarborough asked Brzezinski if she thought Biden should participate in the next two debates, and she concluded the emotional roller coaster ride with some praise for Biden, followed by a rant of passionate lamentation:
If it's going to be like this, absolutely not. He's lowering himself. He did well. He was elegant. He was kind. He was good. He showed -- tried to talk about the plans that he had, but this was not a debate. This was a disaster. And it was a fire-bombing of our democracy. If -- Bob Woodward said the president is assassinating the presidency, well the president fire-bombed the debate process, and the debate commission and moderator allowed it. This was preventable. It was preventable in real time and nothing was done. Why in the HELL should he get back on stage with that FOOL next to him, every second spouting out disinformation, yelling over people, and having a moderator obsequiously try and stop him but do nothing? Not use the tools around him to make this a real debate where they talked about actual facts? That didn't happen. It was 90 minutes of, quite frankly, a disgrace for our country, an embarrassment…
Hopefully, the future debates will be called off so that Joe Biden will not have to endure the painful success of the campaign trail, and President Trump can embarrass himself independently until Biden wins the election from his basement.
This shameless spectacle was sponsored in part by Flex Seal, Allstate, and the Shark VacMop. Let them know what you think here.
Read transcript highlights below:
MSNBC's Morning Joe
09/30/2020
6:19:53 AMMIKA BRZEZINSKI: Joe Biden's getting great reviews. He did great last night. He handled it really well. And when he was allowed to talk, he sounded great. But why in the world was his team expose him to lower himself to a display like that ever again?
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, Willie and I were talking about this before the show. I would have walked off the stage at certain times and said, until you can actually make sure that we abide by the rules, I'm not going to be a part of this charade. That said, voters overwhelmingly thought last night that Joe Biden won that debate. Donald Trump set himself on fire in front of 100 million people last night during that debate. He turned off women. He turned off independents. He turned off the same suburban voters that are turned off by Mitch McConnell trying to jam through a Supreme Court justice in the dying days of the Trump administration. So, they have to debate whether they want to go out and let Donald Trump blow up himself again –
BRZEZINSKI: Well, he makes a joke of our democracy as he's blowing himself up, so that's the part where -- if I were the Biden campaign, I'd say, we're not doing this to our country.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I think they're probably deliberating over that this morning. I do want to say a quick side note about Chris Wallace. I was concerned last night. I was upset last night about the fact that Chris Wallace was allowing Donald Trump to interrupt Joe Biden so much, especially the first half of the debate.
(…)
I think it's up to the commission, Willie, to make sure, now that they have a candidate that they know is not going to follow the rules of these debates, to either come up with a fail-safe way to make sure that Americans actually can watch a real debate, or just call the other two off.
(…)
WILLIE GEIST: But I think you're right, it's on the commission now to say, when a candidate has that two minutes -- it's supposed to be two minutes of Joe Biden speaking alone or two minutes of President Trump speaking alone. Just cut the other guy's mic.
(…)
6:29:28 AM
BRZEZINSKI: He broke all the rules. And Joe, honestly, if there is another debate, there needs to be a buzzer. There needs to be a way to turn off the mic. And every time this president says something that is patently false, that is blatantly untrue, the conversation should not be allowed to go on. We need to have a debate based on facts, and he was not playing fair. And that's exactly how he runs this country. And that's exactly how he wants to run the election.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, Donald Trump doesn't play by the rules and doesn't play by traditional democratic standards. And I said a couple weeks ago, I really thought that the Biden campaign should have from the very beginning only asked for one debate, said we're going to do one debate. That was good enough for Ronald Reagan in 1980. It's good enough for us now.
(…)
SCARBOROUGH: I thought it was a mistake to give this guy three debates, because we knew they weren't going to be debates.
BRZEZINSKI: Joe Biden did great, by the way.
(…)
7:24:49 AM
BRZEZINSKI: And here's the thing -- it could have been prevented. There were many options that the moderator could have taken. He could have stopped the debate. He could have made the men walk off stage and come back. He could have asked audio -- he could have turned around and said, I'd like to know who's running audio. I need you to turn off Donald Trump's mic, because I would like to hear Joe Biden speak for two minutes uninterrupted. He did none of that. What are the issues at stake for the debate commission, if there's going to be a second debate? Because if I were team Biden, I would not do another debate after this debacle.
(…)
7:53:06 AM
SCARBOROUGH: Well, Mika, let me ask you that question really quickly. Should Joe Biden, in your opinion, should Joe Biden do the next two debates?
BRZEZINSKI: If it's going to be like this, absolutely not. He's lowering himself. He did well. He was elegant. He was kind. He was good. He showed -- tried to talk about the plans that he had, but this was not a debate. This was a disaster. And it was a fire-bombing of our democracy. If -- Bob Woodward said the president is assassinating the presidency, well the president fire-bombed the debate process, and the debate commission and moderator allowed it. This was preventable. It was preventable in real time and nothing was done. Why in the HELL should he get back on stage with that FOOL next to him, every second spouting out disinformation, yelling over people, and having a moderator obsequiously try and stop him but do nothing? Not use the tools around him to make this a real debate where they talked about actual facts? That didn't happen. It was 90 minutes of, quite frankly, a disgrace for our country, an embarrassment[.]
