In the wake of the scuffle that occurred between GOP Montana Congressional Candidate Greg Giafonte and Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs, co-host Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Thursday went directly after President Donald Trump. “You can draw a straight line from Republican candidates thinking that sort of behavior is okay when you have Donald Trump berating reporters throughout the entire campaign, suggesting terrible things, calling them -- using the Stalinist term 'enemy of the people.'" He complained to panelist Mike Barnicle, “This is not a big leap from what the head of the Republican Party is saying every day and what happened last night in Montana.”
“On that straight line, Joe, you can track all of the candidates' prior statements about the media, the media is against us, the media is against you, the people,” Barnicle said, agreeing with Scarborough, “And it leads inevitably to something like this.” Scarborough would later repeat again the term Stalinist in reference to Trump with the following monologue:
...The fish rots, again, from the head and at what point do Republicans start criticizing Donald Trump for attacking federal judges? At what point do Republicans start criticizing Donald Trump for using a Stalinist trick calling the press enemies of the people? At what point -- are Republicans going to come out today and distance themselves from a candidate they endorsed and gave money to that beat up a reporter? At what point does our party say enough? I will tell you this is not the party I grew up in and I'm not just talking about now, I'm talking about the brutish behavior from the top.
So, Donald Trump is a Stalinist because of the actions of one Republican candidate in Montana? Why is it that whenever a Republican elected official or candidate does something untoward or harmful to another person that the media immediately blame all Republicans and scream for them to denounce it, but decline to do the same for Democrats?
Here are the excerpts from the May 25 exchange:
6:04 AM
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's insane that this would happen. The guy is asking again about CBO scoring for health care bill and how he's going to vote and he completely explodes, beats this guy up, pushes him to the ground. You have Fox News knew camera crew there verifying that's exactly what happened. Fox News reporters verifying that. You know, Mike Barnicle, I'm sorry. Yesterday we joked about being able to draw a straight line from Donald Trump to some of the things that he's being investigated for.
You can draw a straight line from Republican candidates thinking that sort of behavior is okay when you have Donald Trump berating reporters throughout the entire campaign, suggesting terrible things, calling them -- using the Stalinist term "enemy of the people," a term so offensive even in the Soviet Union that Khrushchev outlawed it after Stalin died. You have Katy Tur, being berated. You have Mika Brzezinski being berated by Trump. You have CNN, all of CNN, it's dangerous for CNN reporters sometimes to go into those areas because Trump is whipping these people into a frenzy. This is not a big leap from what the head of the Republican party is saying every day and what happened last night in Montana.
MIKE BARNICLE: On that straight line, Joe, you can track all of the candidates' prior statements about the media, the media is against us, the media is against you, the people. And it leads inevitably to something like this and it also leads inevitably to such a pathetic statement that the campaign released which discounts the one thing that the media, the press is after, truth. It completely discounts the truth of what happened.
(...)
SCARBOROUGH:...the fish rots, again, from the head and at what point do Republicans start criticizing Donald Trump for attacking federal judges? At what point do Republicans start criticizing Donald Trump for using a Stalinist trick calling the press enemies of the people? At what point -- are Republicans going to come out today and distance themselves from a candidate they endorsed and gave money to that beat up a reporter? At what point does our party say enough? I will tell you this is not the party I grew up in and I'm not just talking about now, I'm talking about the brutish behavior from the top.
