While swooning over President Biden during MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday, co-host Joe Scarborough laughably claimed that the ineffectual Democrat was somehow the “mirror image of Ronald Reagan.” He desperately argued that any Republican criticism of Biden would ultimately fall flat because people just love “good old Joe.”
Scarborough gushed to viewers: “...we’re starting to see a really interesting dynamic take place here, I think, where Joe Biden, seems to me, to be a mirror image of Ronald Reagan.” After explaining how Reagan was “seen as temperamentally moderate, you know, everybody’s granddad” who “passed very conservative legislation,” the anchor fawned over gaffe-prone Biden supposedly being equally beloved:
Here, we have with Joe Biden, a guy who is temperamentally moderate. A guy that Republicans and talk radio bashes, suggests that he’s just horrible or out of his mind and he’s just good old Joe. But he’s passing really progressive legislation here....I think so much of it has to do with Joe Biden’s temperament. You can’t paint him out to be a radical because he’s good old Joe and he appears to be beating the Republicans everyday on this stuff.
Moments later, Scarborough bragged to wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski that the President was “lapping” Republicans and “lapping them everyday.” Brzezinski chimed in: “Without even trying.” Scarborough sneered in agreement: “Yeah, not even trying.”
Politico’s White House editor and longtime liberal hack Sam Stein argued conservative racism was the reason the GOP was unable to effectively counter Biden:
I think part of the problem here is that Republicans are having a lot of difficulty figuring out how to go after Joe Biden. He is not Barack Obama. Well beyond issues that relate to policy, he’s a white male. Barack Obama was a historic president, he was black, and it was uncomfortable for a fair number of voters.
Scarborough fondly recalled how he boosted the Biden campaign leading up to the 2020 election: “I remember during the campaign calling him ‘Teflon Joe’ because none of the attacks from the left seemed to stick and Donald Trump, who could label everybody and get under everybody’s skin, he never laid a glove on Biden. This is a guy that for some reason Republicans just can’t demonize.”
In response, The Washington Post’s Eugene Scott proved what Biden groupie he was:
Joe Biden is not a rookie, he’s a veteran. And many of these Republicans are aware of him not just from the Obama administration but from his time in the Senate. And they’re aware of his personal story and his narrative and they’re drawn to that. And they believe he is a decent man, genuinely invested in passing policy that benefits them. He’s not concerned about these culture wars or the politics that dominate conservative media most nights.
Not only does Scott think Republicans believe Biden is “investing in passing policy that benefits them,” the partisan shill ridiculously claimed the President – who brazenly lied about the Georgia voting law being “Jim Crow on steroids” and demanded Major League Baseball move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta – is “not concerned about these culture wars.” Someone would have to be completely detached from reality to honestly think any of that is true.
This is the fact-free, left-wing bubble that these professional pundits live in – where they serve as Democratic Party doormats, not journalists.
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Here is a transcript of the April 7 discussion:
6:42 AM ET
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JOE SCARBOROUGH: David Drucker, we’re starting to see a really interesting dynamic take place here, I think, where Joe Biden, seems to me, to be a mirror image of Ronald Reagan. Reagan, who was seen as temperamentally moderate, you know, everybody’s granddad. People liked Reagan. He wasn’t threatening. He was always being, you know, accused of being a fascist and accused of being threatening. People would see Reagan on TV and they go, “He’s my granddad.” Right? And he passed very conservative legislation, it was a conservative revolution. And yet, again, remarkably popular.
Here, we have with Joe Biden, a guy who is temperamentally moderate. A guy that Republicans and talk radio bashes, suggests that he’s just horrible or out of his mind and he’s just good old Joe. But he’s passing really progressive legislation here. He’s passing legislation that is – he’s going really big in a way that even Larry Summers and Steve Rattner and people who’ve been lifelong Democratic economists or business people are saying, “Wait, wait, we’re spending way more than we need.” And yet, the public is supporting these – this legislation overwhelmingly.
And again, I think so much of it has to do with Joe Biden’s temperament. You can’t paint him out to be a radical because he’s good old Joe and he appears to be beating the Republicans everyday on this stuff. They can whine all they want, but my god, it’s hard to beat 70, 75% when you’re talking about this massive legislation, whether it’s on COVID relief or the transportation bill.
DAVID DRUCKER: Yeah, Joe, it’s been interesting to watch because what Joe Biden, I think, has done so far that’s been strategically very smart is he has stayed focused in the opening days of his presidency on the things that voters would is most important to them, even as pressure to deal with other fledgling crises and priorities are looming over him. I mean, there are foreign policy issues to deal with regarding China and Russia. There’s a crisis of a border surge at the Mexican border with unaccompanied minors. There’s the reopening of schools and dealing with the teacher’s unions. And what has Joe Biden really been focused on? And some of this does get to some of those topics. But what has he kept his eye on and talked about the most? COVID relief, with his initial $2 trillion package, and now what he’s calling a jobs package with a lot of popular infrastructure. We just heard the polling numbers from Sam.
And when you do that, especially combined – and I think you’re right about this in terms of his moderate temperament, so much so that Republicans are struggling to turn Joe Biden into a boogie man. I mean, they can’t – they’re trying everything, every which way they can to turn Joe Biden into another Barack Obama, another Nancy Pelosi, [coughs] excuse me, and they just can’t do it. But Joe Biden – [coughs] excuse me – is not making it easy for them because right now he’s staying focused on things voters like the most and think need to be done the most.
And so eventually this will probably come to a head because nothing lasts forever. But if stays focused on infrastructure and if he can get around some of the ancillary parts of the bill that are not dealing with infrastructure, but that are in there, then he’s gonna have a very good first six months.
And I’ll just mention this, one of the things that hurt Barack Obama, whatever you think about recalcitrant Republicans at the time, is once he passed his initial stimulus bill that was designed to help the country dig out of the Great Recession, which was a huge priority, he pivoted to health care reform. Voters at the time, they like the bill now, voters at the time did not think that was a priority and they did not think it should have been dealt with. They thought the President, at the time, should have continued to deal with jobs and economic recovery. And I think had he done that, he might have come out in a different place in competition with Republican opposition.
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6:49 AM ET
JOE SCARBOROUGH: They’re going to have to come up with a new strategy because the “just say no” strategy that they’ve employed against Barack Obama, the “just say no” strategy that the Republican Party has employed on health care over the past 11 years, not putting forward a single unifying health care plan for the Republican Party, that’s not working in 2021.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: No alternatives.
SCABOROUGH: No alternatives. They’re right now the know-nothing party. They need to figure out – you know, I know it irritates you when I say this, and I say there’s always a deal to be made, there’s always a way to get from no to yes. They have got to seriously figure out how to get from no to yes. Not for Joe Biden’s sake. Not for the Democratic Party’s sake. But for their own sake. They’re hurting themselves now. If they want to keep doing that, it’s their business, it’s their party. I mean, they did turn it over to Donald Trump for four years after all, so it’s not like they made good choices in the past. But Joe Biden is lapping them and he’s lapping them everyday.
BRZEZINSKI: Without even trying.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, not even trying. Don’t believe me, just look at the polls. The numbers don’t lie.
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6:52 AM ET
SAM STEIN: Just to go back to David’s point, I think part of the problem here is that Republicans are having a lot of difficulty figuring out how to go after Joe Biden. He is not Barack Obama. Well beyond issues that relate to policy, he’s a white male. Barack Obama was a historic president, he was black, and it was uncomfortable for a fair number of voters.
But the other thing is you can tell how difficult it is by how they are targeting their resources and push-back. They’re not pushing back on Joe Biden. They’re pushing back on corporations for meddling in state voting issues, they’re pushing back on corporations for restricting what type of books are in their catalogs based on illustrations. And they’re pushing back on corporations who make Mr. Potato Head dolls. The targets are not the politicians, they are corporate America. And it’s just – you know, maybe it will work. I mean, there’s some Democrats who feel like the party needs to take this culture war stuff more seriously. But maybe it won’t. Maybe they will end up looking like they were focused on side issues when Joe Biden was rebuilding back the country from the COVID pandemic.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, Mr. Potato Head and Dr. Seuss’s own family, by the way, deciding to no longer publish their own books. Probably not going to cut it on Election Day as issues that matter as much as rebuilding America’s infrastructure and actually getting money in people’s pockets to get this economy roaring.
Eugene, I wanted to just circle back to you on something that Sam said here, and that is that Democrats haven’t yet figured out – or Republicans haven’t yet figured out a way to nail Joe Biden. I remember during the campaign calling him “Teflon Joe” because none of the attacks from the left seemed to stick and Donald Trump, who could label everybody and get under everybody’s skin, he never laid a glove on Biden. This is a guy that for some reason Republicans just can’t demonize.
EUGENE SCOTT: And there are a couple reasons for that, Joe. One is the fact that, you know, Joe Biden is not a rookie, he’s a veteran. And many of these Republicans are aware of him not just from the Obama administration but from his time in the Senate. And they’re aware of his personal story and his narrative and they’re drawn to that. And they believe he is a decent man, genuinely invested in passing policy that benefits them. He’s not concerned about these culture wars or the politics that dominate conservative media most nights. And he is showing that and he’s proving that and has been able to point to those results. And as you noted, voters see that and they appreciate that and they respect that.
Another thing that is really making it very difficult for these things to stick with Joe is that Republicans just have a messaging problem. And they are concerned about the conservative media far more than they are concerned about conservative voters. And so they listen to those who are bound to attack them and criticize them for taking stands, even if that ultimately doesn’t help them with the people who sent them to Washington. And until they figure out what it is that they are about and what they do best, they’re gonna have a very difficult time remaining popular. And that’s why you see these numbers showing how unsupported their ideas are when it comes to these issues that Joe Biden is trying to move forward.
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