On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough dragged out that empty, shopworn claim to be a "small-government conservative" like he was as a Republican congressman in the 1990s.
But that was belied by what followed, full-throated scaremongering about Republicans killing people by pausing USAID funding for a week:
Question number one, when are we going to finally see the lawsuits move on USAID and actually an injunction that stops that, all of those actions right now that are literally, unless the reports are exaggerated, literally killing people across the globe right now, this morning, this instant.
This is cartoonish Democrat commentary, that the small-government conservatives are murdering people by putting a hold on spending.
Scarborough surely was aware, but chose to ignore, that [emphasis added]:
"Emergency food assistance was not included in the broad freeze of foreign aid. [Secretary of State] Rubio on January 28 issued an additional waiver for life-saving assistance and laid out criteria for what would qualify."
Moreover, President Trump has appointed Rubio as USAID's Acting Administrator. And whereas lifesaving activities will not be eliminated, per the State Department:
"It is now abundantly clear that significant portions of USAID funding are not aligned with the core national interests of the United States. As we evaluate USAID and ensure it is in alignment with an America First agenda and the efforts of the State Department, we will continue to protect the American people’s interests and ensure their tax dollars are not wasted."
So why Scarborough's outrage? Before jetting off to summer on Nantucket, were Joe and Mika planning to attend that USAID-funded transgender opera in Columbia, perhaps swinging by Ecuador to take in a USAID-funded drag show there?
Aligning himself fully with the Democrats and the rest of the liberal media, Scarborough also condemned Trump's executive order aimed at halting birthright citizenship.
There is a viable argument to be made that the 14th Amendment does not create a right to "birthright citizenship," at least, not how liberals interpret that phrase.
As Ann Coulter has succinctly put it:
"Under the 'birthright citizenship' idiocy, enemies of the state, giant sucks on our welfare system, spies and terrorists — 'U.S. citizens' all! Just sneak past our border agents, have a baby and Ha-ha — you didn’t catch me and now my kid’s a citizen!"
Note: Scarborough also managed to work into his spiel the fact that he had been a Congressman. Who knew?
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/6/25
6:02 am ETJOE SCARBOROUGH: Listen, I'm a small government conservative, Willie. I'm all for audits. I'm all, I'm all for going through things and see, you know, use best practices. See how you can save as much of the taxpayers' dollars as you can save it and running it efficiently.
But he went on X and basically decided he was going to shut down USAID. Shutting down an entire department that was founded and authorized by the United States Congress. So this is a violation of Article I powers.
And as a member of the House of Representatives, that's the one thing we always understood. We didn't have a lot of power if the Senate wanted to run over us on other matters or if the White House did. But we had the power of the purse. And when you're holding the money, and nothing can get authorized without the House of Representatives. That's all the power you need to level the playing field.
Now, when they let an unelected bureaucrat shut down an entire agency because he doesn't like it, and he goes on, you know, midnight rants on X, that's, that's one of the grossest retreats, one of the most outrageous retreats from Article I power that I've seen in Washington in a very long time.
. . .
This birthright citizenship ban, it's being killed as many times as Dracula in bad horror movie. Like, one federal judge after another federal judge after another federal judge. And we're going to see that. We're going to see that. We had a guest on a couple of days ago that said, just hold on. Just wait. The Article III courts are going to stop a lot of this, this unlawful, unconstitutional stuff that's being signed in by executive orders that were signed more for political impact—I heard this even from inside the administration—than they were to withstand judicial challenges.
So I guess my question is, I've got two questions this morning. Question number one, when are we going to finally see the lawsuits move on USAID and actually an injunction that stops that, all of those actions right now that are literally, unless the reports are exaggerated, literally killing people across the globe right now, this morning, this instant.
When does that injunction come? Because the richest dude in the world, just cause he wants to, doesn't have the right to shut down a federal agency.
