On Monday's Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle offered a typically overwrought take that if Donald Trump wins the presidency again in 2024, it's a threat to the existence of America as we know it. They can never be moderately alarmed. It always has to be an "existential threat."
Fill-in host Jonathan Lemire set Barnicle up by trashing the Republicans. Chris Christie said the Republican Party as a whole didn't embrace the "Big Lie," and Lemire proclaimed "I'm going to respectfully disagree. That is who they are. The vast majority of Republicans have embraced the 'Big Lie.' They have kowtowed to whatever Trump wants, and yes, as you just mentioned there have been moments where the party could have broken from Trump, it never ever does."
Then he tried to claim that if a pile of Republicans line up to challenge Trump -- not just DeSantis, but Pence, Pompeo, and Christie -- "that plays right into Trump's hands. Because Trump has a loyal base of support, and the bigger that field gets, the more likely he's going to come out on top." Barnicle replied:
BARNICLE: We saw Governor Sununu and Christie both speaking, and Charlie's point is valid, and I wonder about it myself. And Charlie, maybe you can expand upon it. Doesn't it really prove the point that Donald Trump has instilled such fear in other Republican candidates that they go right up to the trip wire of answering the question of if he does indeed, God forbid, become President of the United States again, it poses a threat to national security, and a threat to the larger existence of the United States of America, as we know it?
Sykes replied: “Yes, that's exactly right. Of course, the big fear is that Donald Trump is prepared to burn the house down if he doesn't get the nomination.”
You don’t stay on MSNBC by dissenting from the notion that Trump is a nuclear missile waiting to explode and destroy America. But the left is deeply invested in keeping Trump right at the center of the GOP. You can look at these midterms, and wonder out loud, wouldn’t they want him as the nominee after almost all of his handpicked Republican candidates lost? If cynically supporting the MAGA candidate worked for the Democrats in 2022, why not a repeat?
Monday's Morning Joe messaging was brought to you in part by Dove and Etsy.
