After Morning Joe led today's show with the report of the arrest of a Coast Guard officer accused of planning terror attacks against numerous liberal politicians and media figures, including Joe Scarborough, Scarborough said:
"I know he [President Trump] is not disturbed by the news reports. He sees that as a sign of strength, and a sign of passionate support."
The "reports" Scarborough mentioned presumably are those regarding the breaking news of the Coast Guardsman charged with planning mass attacks. But before making his unequivocal declaration that "I know he is not disturbed by the news reports," Mika Brzezinski also mentioned the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, in which 11 people were murdered, and the arrest of a Florida man charged with sending pipe bombs to Trump critics.
So it seems possible that Scarborough was also claiming that, among other things, President Trump was not disturbed by the mass murder at the synagogue.
Given that Scarborough himself was reportedly on the Guardsman's hit list, Joe can't be blamed for taking the planned attacks personally. But that's still no excuse for accusing Trump of being unperturbed by mass murder, past or planned.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/21/19
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: [The arrest of the Coast Guardsman] comes just four months after the arrest of a Florida man charged with sending more than a dozen pipe bomb packages to prominent critics of President Donald Trump. The very next day a Pennsylvania man opened fire at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11. The accused killer frequently posted anti-Semitic threats, as well as conspiracy theories about the caravan of migrants traveling north from Honduras toward the US border. President Trump has repeatedly called for stopping the caravan, and claimed without providing any evidence at all that Middle Easterners and criminals were among the migrants. And all of this comes as the publisher of the New York Times is reacting to the President's latest attack following the paper's reporting that raised new questions about obstruction of justice. The President tweeted, quote, "The New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" To which Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger responded in part, "The phrase "enemy of the people" is not just false, it's dangerous. It has an ugly history of being wielded by dictators and tyrants who sought to control public information. And it is particularly reckless coming from someone whose office gives him broad powers to fight or imprison the nation's enemies. As I have repeatedly told President Trump face-to-face, there are mounting signs that this incendiary rhetoric is encouraging threats and violence against journalists at home and abroad.". . .
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Take his [President Trump's] words literally. He knows exactly what he's doing. And he's proven that he knows exactly what he's doing. And, knowing him for 11 years, as I have, I'm fairly confident that he is not disturbed by the news report. In fact, I know he's not disturbed by the news reports. He sees that as a sign of strength, and a sign of passionate support that he tries to churn up every day in his Twitter feed, he tries to churn up every time he calls the media the enemy of the people.
