As the fight for gun-control legislation continues on Capitol Hill, so too does the hypocrisy of MSNBC’s Morning Joe. On Wednesday, the show criticized Senator Susan Collins’ bipartisan legislation that would prevent people on two government watch lists from buying firearms. Host Joe Scarborough is so accustomed to attacking Republicans that he quickly chastised Senator Lindsey Graham for making his point on the need for greater constitutional restrictions regarding firearms.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I own an AR-15. If you’re on this list it doesn't bother me one bit that you can't buy one right away. To my friends at the NRA, I understand your concern about denying somebody the right to buy a gun that's a constitutional right. But every right, whether speech or buying a weapon or any other constitutional right, has boundaries on it.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: There's such amazing hypocrisy. You've got the FBI that's getting kicked around because they investigated a guy a couple of times and then let him go, and he ended up killing 49 people. The same people in the same breath are saying well, you know, if you have a suspected terrorist on government anti-terror lists, they have the constitutional right to buy guns. No, they don't. They shouldn't. And this is easy. Nine out of ten Americans actually believe this is a very simple proposition, that people on terror watch lists should not be able to just walk into stores and buy AR-15's. So it's, it’s a madness. And I'll be honest with you, even as a conservative guy that had 100% rating with the NRA, I just don't get the extreme--I mean we are in a war against terror, that war has come to the homeland. And we still have people acting like it’s 1999. And they need to grow up.
As a matter of fact, Joe, “if you have a suspected terrorist on government anti-terror lists, they have the constitutional right to buy guns” is quite literally not what they are saying. Senator Graham is one of seven co-sponsors for this bipartisan legislation and was directing his comments to the NRA. Had Scarborough digested Graham's words rather than instantly accuse him and others of being hypocrites, he would have heard him say that we need to expand the boundaries of the Second Amendment.
The extent of Scarborough’s hypocrisy shined bright when he ended his rant by pleading for politicians “to grow up.” Interesting choice of words, seeing as only minutes later he had the Morning Joe panelists roaring with laughter after he joked that Huffington Post’s Sam Stein was “a gun nut.”
SCARBOROUGH: Hey Sam, you’re such a gun nut.
[Laughter breaks out around the table]
SCARBOROUGH: You know what? Why don’t you just go to a gun show right now.
BARNICLE: He’s carrying right now. He’s packing right now.
STEIN: I know. I mean, what can I say.
SCARBOROUGH: Sam’s going to a pawn shop right after this.
STEIN: I went this morning.
I suppose comedy is in the eye of the beholder. Willie Geist’s final thoughts rounded out the depressingly unfunny nature of their gun control “analysis:”
GEIST: Yeah I think there has to be some fix and I think Susan Collins’ idea here is a step in that direction. We’ll see. But its guns, so likely nothing will happen in the end.
STEIN: [Laughs]
If nothing happens in the end, it’s not because “its guns.” Rather, it’s the result of stubborn leaders in Washington who are incapable of compromise, mixed with the misguided allegiance and ill-timed humor of a mainstream media who notoriously add fuel to the fire.
View Full Transcript Here:
06-22-16 MSNBC Morning Joe
06:52:10 AM – 6:57:09 AM
WILLIE GEIST: A day after four gun control measures failed to pass in the Senate a coalition of centrist Republican and Democratic lawmakers are backing a new bill. Senator Susan Collins unveiled bipartisan legislation that would prevent people on two government watch lists, including the no-fly list, from buying firearms. Seven other senators are listed as co-sponsors of the bill. The lawmakers acknowledged yesterday there would most likely be pushback from gun rights advocates.
[Video from Senate Group Yesterday on Capitol Hill]
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I own an AR-15. If you’re on this list it doesn't bother me one bit that you can't buy one right away. To my friends at the NRA, I understand your concern about denying somebody the right to buy a gun that's a constitutional right. But every right, whether speech or buying a weapon or any other constitutional right, has boundaries on it.
[End of video]
GEIST: And Joe, the opposition to this—
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Andddd----
GEIST: --obviously is that these could be arbitrary lists, whether it's no fly watch lists and you're denying someone due process by taking away their Second Amendment right.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: There's such amazing hypocrisy. You've got the FBI that's getting kicked around because they investigated a guy a couple of times and then let him go, and he ended up killing 49 people. The same people in the same breath are saying well, you know, if you have a suspected terrorist on government anti-terror lists, they have the constitutional right to buy guns. No, they don't. They shouldn't. And this is easy. Nine out of ten Americans actually believe this is a very simple proposition, that people on terror watch lists should not be able to just walk into stores and buy AR-15's. So it's, it’s a madness. And I'll be honest with you, even as a conservative guy that had 100% rating with the NRA, I just don't get the extreme. I mean we are in a war against terror, that war has come to the homeland. And we still have people acting like it’s 1999. And they need to grow up.
GEIST: One of the provisions, Mike, we should point out in the Collins idea is that you can appeal if you’re on that watch list. It is kind of arbitrary, some people were thrown on there, denied their rights. You can appeal that you shouldn't be on the list in the first place and then be allowed to buy a gun.
MIKE BARNICLE: yeah and it eliminates John Cornyn's same deal on his amendment which would require a Federal judge--
WALLACE: The due process piece.
BARNICLE: --like within 72 hours to rule on it. So it gets by that. But one of the elements of hypocrisy Joe you just mentioned hypocrisy, is the origins of the tea party, if you look back at the origins of the tea party. It was always framed up with the phrase, listen to the people. That's what the tea party group used to say in all across this country, in small towns and big cities. Listen to the people. Why don’s they and others listen to the people on gun control legislation? They do not listen to the people.
WALLACE: Well the other thing is, Mike, if you have 95 or 92% supports expanded background check, 85% support not giving a gun to someone on the list, that includes a whole lot of legal gun owners. So you’ve got a whole lot people who legally own guns who support it.
SAM STEIN: I want to stir it up a little bit here. Because there's something very arbitrary about the government creating lists that has duplicate names that people aren't even sure sometimes that they’re on, and then saying no you can’t have this. And I understand—
WALLACE: No but that’s why the legislation has to have a fix.
STEIN: I understand and I think the Susan Collins legislation addresses that. But I’m not, I don’t dismiss the concerns that people have about this.
WALLACE: Yeah. Nobody does. Joe?
SCARBOROUGH: Hey Sam, you’re such a gun nut.
[Laughter breaks out around the table]
SCARBOROUGH: You know what? Why don’t you just go to a gun show right now.
BARNICLE: He’s carrying right now. He’s packing right now.
STEIN: I know. I mean, what can I say.
SCARBOROUGH: Sam’s going to a pawn shop right after this.
STEIN: I went this morning.
SCARBOROUGH: You know--again, Willie, the thing is that this isn't just liberals and Democrats that are saying the same thing that we're seeing except for Sam Stein.
[Nicolle Wallace laughing]
SCARBOROUGH: It's gun owners and Republicans. Time and time again, you see poll after poll after poll that shows 85, 86, 87% of Republicans support expanded background checks. 80, 81, 82, 83% of Republicans support keeping guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists. This is easy. And this is the sort of thing people are going to look back, scratch their heads, and ask, what the hell were they thinking the next time another huge terror attack happens in this country. We're living in age of terror and we have all these people that want us to bend over backwards, do all of these things that make civil libertarians nervous and yet they don't want to even keep AR-15’s out of the hands of suspected terrorists who are on government terror watch lists. Even with due process.
GEIST: Yeah I think there has to be some fix and I think Susan Collins’ idea here is a step in that direction. We’ll see. But its guns so likely nothing will happen in the end.
STEIN: [Laughs]
WALLACE: [Drawn out] No.
