Hypocritical MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is now demanding that Republican Senators stand up and fight Donald Trump, insisting that they call the President “dishonest.” Yet, the very same Scarborough previously compared Trump to Ronald Reagan and called attacks on his honesty “vicious.”
On Friday’s Morning Joe, the host played video of reporter Kasie Hunt asking Ted Cruz about Trump’s honesty. After the Texas Senator ignored the journalist, Scarborough mocked, “When you were going after Ted Cruz, it looked like a reporter going after a suspect. Like, ‘Where's the body? Where's the body?’”
The MSNBC personality jeered, “He was running from you!” Co-host Mika Brzezinski needled, “Slammed the door on Katie.” The hypocrisy is galling. Scarborough and Brzezinski made no effort to stop Trump in the primaries and even cheered him on.
National Review’s Sarah Quinlan wrote an expose of the duo’s Trump love, including this 2015 gush from Scarborough: “I think the one thing that Donald Trump has . . . and that Ronald Reagan had, was the genius of knowing that the greatest thing he had going for him was always being underestimated.”
Speaking of questions about honesty, when Megyn Kelly questioned Trump’s character at a debate, Scarborough thought it was a “vicious” hit. Quinlan noted that Scarborough even mused about being Trump’s running mate and also accepted thanks from the businessman for being “supporters” and “believers.”
The Washington Post in February of 2016 leaked audio of a hot mic where Trump demanded that Brzezinski ask “nothing too hard.” Scarborough responded, “Exactly.”
When Cruz was standing up to Trump in the primaries, Scarborough denounced and mocked the effort. As NewsBusters noted at the time, the host sneered on April 14, 2016, “Ted Cruz is the worst-case scenario... even worse than Donald Trump.”
In March of 2016, Morning Joe’s Donny Deutsch ranted that Cruz was “completely unelectable” in the general election. Hillary Clinton, however was “clearly electable.” Oops.
Scarborough and his Morning Joe crew have shown an inability to speak truth to power and are in no position to judge others on this issue.
A partial transcript is below:
Morning Joe
8/4/17
7:30[Video of Kasie Hunt chasing Ted Cruz, asking him if he thinks Trump is an “honest man.]
KASIE HUNT: Is that a no or a yes?
TED CRUZ: I’m not going to play the game.
...
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Kasie, when you were going after Ted Cruz, it looked like a reporter going after a suspect. Like, “Where's the body? Where’s the body?” “I'm not talking. I'm not talking!”
...
SCARBOROUGH: Ted Cruz, Kasie Hunt —
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: He was running from you.
SCARBOROUGH: He was running from you. Said he wasn’t going to play the game.
BRZEZINSKI: Slammed the door on Kasie.
...
7:32
SCARBOROUGH: Ted Cruz specifically, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump used the National Inquirer to accuse Ted Cruz's father of assassinating JFK. He used the National Inquirer to accuse Ted Cruz of having six affairs. He used the National Inquirer for other attacks. He put up tweets saying Ted Cruz's wife was not attractive, basically. How hard is it for Ted? If you accuse my father of assassinating JFK, or plotting along with a 9/11 hijackers, I'm going to be able to go, “Yeah. no, he doesn't tell the truth.”
BRZEZINSKI: This is like the truther.
SCARBOROUGH: I think it's kind of extraordinary that Ted Cruz can't answer that question when his own father has been accused of assassinating JFK.
EUGENE ROBINSON: What did he say at the time? Didn't he call him a sniveling something? It was a wonderful Ted Cruz quote from that moment.
HUNT: Ted Cruz has a couple problems. One, a lot of people who support Donald Trump are the same people that support Ted Cruz. If he pisses them off, it's a problem. Two, some of Ted Cruz’s biggest patrons behind the scenes in the conservative movement have leaned on him hard to stop criticizing the President. And he’s gone along with that. He definitely is somebody that, you’re right, there is a point where he had no fear of attacking President Trump. But it’s shifted dramatically. And, look, I think another dynamic here is we all know that the President watches the news and a lot of these members, whether it’s Ted Cruz or anybody else, they’ve learned that the quickest way to piss the President off is to be seen saying something critical on television saying something.
...
SCARBOROUGH: If somebody attacked my father, if somebody attacked my wife, I wouldn't — and if my donors told me you can't family member the president, I would tell them to go straight to hell. I would tell you, I want to do two things. You can go straight to hell and number two, find somebody to primary me. I'm going to beat their ass. Then I'm going to come back to you and I’m going to make your life over the next six years and living and breathing hell because you want me to defend a man who attacked my wife’s looks and said my father had a part in assassinating John F. Kennedy.
