It's one thing for Joe Scarborough to detest Republicans. That's par for the liberal-media course. But to go on national television and describe a violent fantasy in which a Republican is dismembered? Get help, Joe.
On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough, commenting on a photo of Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) raising his fist in support of the crowd at the Trump rally that preceded the January 6th riot, said:
"He actually had insurrectionists....like the guy with the bird-bone hands. Doing the power-to-the-people signal. Raised fist of a bird. I tell you what: a brisk wind could break that arm right off. He needs to be careful."
Far from reprimanding her husband for his ugly outburst, Mika Brzezinski just added Hawley should fear "his Democratic challenger."
They showed clips of Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz grilling Attorney General Merrick Garland, but they didn't care one whit about the substance. Scarborough could only feign laughter that these GOP clowns were saying this Justice Department was more politicized than Trump's. They mocked the "acting" of the Republican senators, and Scarborough joked about making a pity-squeezing ad like the old Sarah McLachlan ad for the ASPCA, saying for five dollars, you could buy an "insurrectionist" some "acting lessons."
Doing her usual female sidekick routine, Mika added the spectacle made her physically ill:
"I'm still about to . . . "
As you'll see from the screencap, Mika was making the gesture of someone about to vomit. She held the pose for several seconds—just in case anyone missed her implication.
Scarborough also indulged another one of his favorite attacks on Republicans: mentioning that many of them attended elite universities. The show went so far as to prepare a graphic--to Scarborough's great delight--showing banners of the various Ivy League schools they attended. Forget any critique of Garland, it's all "populist nonsense."
Scarborough attacked them as faux populists. Which is rather rich coming from Scarborough, a guy who loves to describe himself as a "simple country lawyer" from the Florida panhandle, flaunting the fact he attended state schools in the South.
Scarborough—the guy who with wife Mika rakes in tens of millions of dollars a year from MSNBC, who lives in super-exclusive Jupiter, Florida, and who "summers" on Nantucket.
So Scarborough mocked Hawley about his "bird-bone hands." And in 2021, we caught Scarborough taunting Hawley about having "a little neck." Careful, Joe: your fascination with the size of men's body parts is reminiscent of a certain former president you love to hate.
On Morning Joe, Scarborough’s dismemberment fantasy about Republican Sen. Josh Hawley was sponsored in part by Sleep Number, Liberty Mutual, and Expedia.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
3/2/23
6:01 am ETMIKA BRZEZINSKI: On Capitol Hill, a hearing dominated by grievance politics, as Attorney General Merrick Garland makes his first appearance before the new Congress.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: He actually had insurrectionists --
MIKA: Oy.
SCARBOROUGH: -- like the, the, the guy with like, what is it, Willie, like, the bird, the bird-bone hands, like doing the --
MIKA: -- ugh.
SCARBOROUGH: -- doing the power-to-the-people signal?
WILLIE GEIST: The raised fist, that's right.
SCARBOROUGH: The raised fist of, of a bird.
MIKA: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: I mean: [as image of Hawley appears on screen] there we go! I'll tell you what: a brisk wind could break that arm—right off! He needs to be careful. But anyway --
MIKA: -- or his Democratic challenger.
. . .
JOSH HAWLEY: Attorney General, are you cultivating sources and spies in Latin Mass parishes and other Catholic parishes around the country?
MERRICK GARLAND: The Justice Department does not do that.
HAWLEY: How many informants do you have in Catholic churches across America?
GARLAND: I don't know. And I don't believe we have any informants aimed at Catholic churches.
HAWLEY: Does your department have a problem with anti-Catholic bias?
GARLAND: Our department is, uh, protects all religions and all ideologies. It does not have any bias against any religion of any kind.
Decisions about how to go about this were made on the ground by FBI agents.
HAWLEY: So you're saying you don't know?
GARLAND: I'm, I'm saying what I just said --
HAWLEY: Which is that you're abdicating responsibility?
GARLAND: I'm not abdicating responsibility.
HAWLEY: Then give me the answer. Do you think, in your opinion, you are the Attorney General of the United States. You are in charge of the Justice Department. And yes, sir. You are responsible. So give me an answer.
We're upposed to hate long guns and assault style-weapons. You're happy to deploy them against Catholics and innocent children.
GEIST: Joe, we gotta start with the acting. It's just --
MIKA Oh my God!
SCARBOROUGH: I was just thinking. Willie, the acting! We—I'm so glad you picked up on that, because as I was looking at this, I was thinking, I really think that Morning Joe should do, I think a service to all of these members.
We could play the Sarah McLachlan tune, "in the arms of an angel," Right?
And say for five dollars, for just five dollars, you can contribute to people who are insurrectionists against the United States of America, who tried to overthrow a democratic election, and help them with acting lessons --
MIKA: The Stanislavski Method.
SCARBOROUGH: I must say, I must say, by the way, here we have these three, these three populists. The guy is screaming. And again, some of the worst acting I've, I've seen.
MIKA: I'm still about to . . .
SCARBOROUGH: But anyway, you've got the first guy was a Princeton boy.
So I think he went to Harvard Law School. And then you had the cornpone guy, the Oxford Boy who voted for John Kerry [John Kennedy of Louisiana]. And then you had Josh Hawley screaming, the insurrectionist --
GEIST: Oh, wow: we have a graphic?
SCARBOROUGH: I love this! And then you had, you had they don't have the Oxford Boy there.
MIKA: I'm embarrassed for us. The Oxford boy. And then you had Josh Hawley, who, Yale undergrad and then Stanford Law School. And they're all screaming and yelling, doing their populist nonsense.
