With Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski away on a belated honeymoon, Willie Geist has been hosting Morning Joe this week. Today, Willie availed himself of his role to take a serious shot at the Democrats' plan to have John Dean, of Watergate fame, testify next week before the House Judiciary Committee.
Discussing the matter with Kasie Hunt, Geist first suggested that the only point of having Dean testify was "for symbolism." A bit later, he unleashed this zinger:
"Unless John Dean has new information, or can testify specifically about something that happened in the Mueller investigation, does this not add to President Trump’s argument that it's just a big a clown show?"
Kasie Hunt couldn't disagree, saying "it certainly could, it absolutely could."
When the Scarboroughs return, will Willie get his hand slapped for straying from the show's 24/7 Trump-hatred script? Perhaps trying to make amends in advance, Geist immediately transitioned to reading from Joe's latest anti-Trump polemic in the Washington Post, wherein Scarborough condemned President Trump's "quivering quislings [i.e., traitors] on Capitol Hill," and denounced Trump's "steady stream of lies and half-truths."
Note: Hunt took her own not-so-subtle shot at committee chairmen Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff, describing them as "not necessarily made for television." Ouch!
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
6/4/19
6:31 am EDTWILLIE GEIST: Forty-six years ago this month, former Nixon White House counsel John Dean appeared before the Senate Watergate Committee, where he read a 245-page statement, alleging that the Nixon White House obstructed justice over the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters during the 1972 campaign, and about his discovery that President Nixon was involved in the cover-up.
Next week, the House Judiciary Committee plans to call Dean to testify as part of a panel on the Mueller report, which chronicled among other things the pressure that President Trump put on his own White House counsel Don McGahn. Politico reports it’s part of a strategy to shift focus from procedural battles to the content of Mueller’s findings.
Kasie Hunt, you cover Capitol Hill every day, what is the point of having John Dean there, if not just for symbolism?
KASIE HUNT: I think that’s entirely the point of it, Willie.
. . .
GEIST: Unless John Dean has new information, or can testify specifically about something that happened in the Mueller investigation, does this not add to President Trump’s argument that it's just a big a clown show?
HUNT: It certainly could, it absolutely could.
