During Wednesday’s Morning Joe, the panel expressed outrage at President Trump calling porn star Stormy Daniels "horseface" and so the outrage culminated in a rant by co-host Mika Brzezinski against Trump, questioning his fitness for office and urged cabinet officials to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Just minutes after Brzezinski called President Trump's “base, animalistic and disgusting” and wondered “what the Russians could have on him,” the hate fest continued with Sam Stein:
Who calls someone horseface? Like, honestly, who uses that terminology? It’s like a, it’s something you would expect out of maybe a pre-pubescent boy. And we’ve come to expect that type of behavior from the President and I’m just shocked that we’ve gotten to the point where it’s just like, oh, yeah, he dubbed someone who he had an affair with while he had a child and paid hush money for a horseface and it’s just crazy to me.
Frequent panelist Mike Barnicle agreed that “we’ve come to expect this kind of behavior” before adding: “When are we going to come to the point where we don’t accept that kind of behavior?” Kasie Hunt expressed pessimism that the time would come “where we don’t accept that kind of behavior,” saying “clearly some of his voters want to hear stuff like this” and said that President Trump was “being egged on by these people.”
Before a commercial break, Brzezinski described the President’s use of the term “horseface” to describe Daniels as “one of the many, many, many ways this President has shown us that he is not fit, possibly not even well.” After accusing President Trump of “cratering our reputation” on the world stage, she connected the President’s remarks about Stormy Daniels to our foreign policy, claiming that “we are losing our influence because this is the type of man who calls a woman a horseface.”
Brzezinski also slammed the President’s response to the alleged murder of Jamal Khasoggi before issuing a call to action to members of the Trump cabinet: “At some point, you are working for a President who is not fit to lead, who is going to do something crazy in five minutes, one hour, tonight or tomorrow. Like what more do you need to hear from him to start thinking 25th Amendment or something else? This is not okay. This is not normal. And this is where we are.”
Brzezinski and colleague Nicolle Wallace, who had previously called on Congress to begin 25th Amendment hearings, appear to have no understanding of the purpose of the 25th Amendment. It was not designed to remove Presidents from office simply because talking heads on MSNBC think they are mean and behave “like a pre-pubescent boy,” as Stein put it.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Wednesday’s edition of Morning Joe is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Morning Joe
10/17/18
06:33 a.m.
SAM STEIN: I don’t want to gloss over the stormy Daniels thing. And I know we can roll our eyes at it and it’s ridiculous, too. But, you know, if you think about it, if you just step back, who calls someone Horseface? Like, honestly, who uses that terminology? It’s like a, it’s something you would expect out of maybe a pre-pubescent boy. And we’ve come to expect that type of behavior from the President and I’m just shocked that we’ve gotten to the point where it’s just like, oh, yeah, he dubbed someone who he had an affair with while he had a child and paid hush money for Horseface and it’s just crazy to me.
MIKE BARNICLE: You know, you’ve got to wonder, I mean, you just used the phrase “we’ve come to expect that kind of behavior.”
STEIN: But we have, right?
BARNICLE: Yes we have but…
BRZEZINSKI: No, I haven’t.
BARNICLE: …when are we going to come to the point where we don’t accept that kind of behavior? When is the….
STEIN: I don’t think people accept it but it’s almost like we’ve gotten so numb to the idea that this is shocking that we just kind of move on with it.
KASIE HUNT: And clearly some of his voters…
STEIN: But, like, honestly, if anyone in my life were to say the word Horseface about a woman, I would be shocked by it.
HUNT: Clearly, clearly some of his voters want to hear stuff like this. I mean they reacted to this stuff during the campaign.
BARNICLE: Look at the rallies.
HUNT: The rallies, I mean this is…you know, he’s being egged on by these people. And, you know, thankfully there are some…you know, Congressman Ryan Costello, who happens to represent my old home district, he says to say this is unbecoming of any man, let alone the President of the United States is a vast understatement. And to say this enables teenage boys, to your point, to feel that they have a license to refer to girls with such names is obvious and it’s all very embarrassing.
STEIN: This is the irony, is that we in our normal lives, as parents or friends or whatever, if we heard someone say that about a woman, we would be shocked and we would admonish them and we would say that’s crazy and we would tell them not to do it again. But a good section of the populace because they all love Donald Trump allow him to do it.
HUNT: Well, you have boys. Would you let, would you let your boys talk about women like this?
WILLIE GEIST: Of course not. Of course not. Mika.
BRZEZINSKI: Look, women and men should not behave this way and we should call it out. And actually, I just, for me, this is one of the many, many, many ways this President has shown us that he is not fit, possibly not even well and I don’t understand the people in this administration taking matters into their own hands and trying to sort of stick it out because they can keep things together. On the foreign policy front, he is cratering our reputation. He is making us an international joke. We are losing our influence because this is the type of man who calls a woman a Horseface, by the way, a woman he chose to have sex with. So I don’t even know where that begins and ends and I wouldn’t want to pick that apart. But if you look at how he is speaking on the international stage about the murder of a Washington Post reporter, that itself should be deeply disturbing to anybody who works inside the White House, works on the national security team, works in the State Department. At some point, you are working for a President who is not fit to lead, who is going to do something crazy in five minutes, one hour, tonight or tomorrow. Like what more do you need to hear from him to start thinking 25th Amendment or something else? This is not okay. This is not normal. And this is where we are.
