As we enter the final weekend before Election Day with national polls showing a close race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the mass media has been busy contemplating about what they did wrong throughout the past year’s election cycle. On Friday’s Morning Joe, an intense conversation unfolded a number of times between the host Joe Scarborough and MSNBC’s liberal commentators and guests which culminated in him exploding at his colleagues: “You people, you need to do your job and be journalists! You're really disgusting!”
Once again, Scarborough sharply advertised his reputation before his liberal colleagues of at least attempting to be fair and balanced in covering this election. He criticized the liberal media in the wake of recent reports over the past month that the election is over when in fact with four days to go, it appears to be closer than ever before.
Scarborough engaged in serious self-criticism in front of his embarrassed crew, stating: “again, this is what the media – they’re busy looking at everybody else. I include myself in this. We’re kind of at the center of it. When this election is over, they need to look at just how poorly of a job they did. You've got editorial pages for a reason. I even like news analysis on the front page. I love those fact checkers even though they're biased…”
The host was then was interrupted with laughter from his co-host Mika Brzezinski who told him: “Joe, stay on point!” as he continued with his speech: “a lot of times it's absolute nonsense! But you have to have a place where we can go and get straight analysis and we don't have that. I won’t even say – I saw something last night late that was staggering that somebody was attacked because they simply said Donald Trump may have had a slight tiny chance of getting elected President.”
In an earlier exchange with another one of the co-hosts Willie Geist, Scarborough expressed himself: “the thing that has been the most frustrating to me, Willie, is having people in the media and even on this show act as if this is a static occurrence like saying that ‘Hillary Clinton is up by six points. Hillary Clinton has been up by eight points.’ Well, every day is a new day. Every day things move in a different direction.” Geist reluctantly agreed, citing close match-ups in the battleground states of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and even New Hampshire.
However when Scarborough engaged with his guest, liberal talk show host Donnie Deutsch, the conversation got heated up more than once. While Deutsch expressed his fear of the prospect of Trump being elected, he also said: “I mean you guys are all professionals, you won’t say it on the air and you all agree with me. This is a dangerous, scary guy who just - and I can’t believe this is potentially happening to this country!” Scarborough then questioned him, asking why this happening is and why the race is getting closer now, suggesting that almost half the American people appear to think the same of Clinton, especially after breaking news on her criminal investigation.
Deutsch initially agreed but then challenged Scarborough while he attempted to give his usual explanation on an increased disconnect between the elite and the electorate. While saying “You see – this is the problem that Manhattan elites like us…”, Deutsch then cut him off, protesting: “Oh no – don’t give me this elite stuff!”
As the conversation turned into an emotional debate between the two, Scarborough concluded by giving his personal experience in retrospect of the entire election, especially throughout the Republican presidential primaries when the media repeatedly and miserably failed to predict the outcome of Donald Trump’s victory, blaming his liberal colleagues of being so blinded they were not able to do their job in reporting the reality:
“I think we have to stop here. I think this is one of those times where we need a time-out and we have to say time-out. It's remarkable that back in the fall last summer when everybody said we were crazy for saying Donald Trump could win the nomination, people freaked out. They freaked out for six or eight months. Then they were saying that we somehow caused it to happen – that we were rooting for it to happen when I actually said in December three months before the first vote was cast that I would not be voting for Donald Trump but they were freaking out. "The New York Times" had all of these stupid things that had Marco Rubio -- remember, Marco was going to win even on the day he was announcing, I think "The New York Times" said Marco was going to win. I had never seen anything like it. So, I understand people hating Donald Trump and being scared of Donald Trump. I understand that – completely, but I don’t understand people incapable of doing their job and being so blinded, it happened before and it’s happening again now – we’ve had people on this show saying that there is no rational way that any rational person could see Donald Trump getting to 270..”
Here is the excerpt from the November 4th discussion on Morning Joe:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
11/4/2016
6:05:22 – 6:10:10 AM
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I will say this, the thing that has been the most frustrating to me, Willie, is having people in the media and even on this show act as if this is a static occurrence like saying that Hillary Clinton is up by six points. Hillary Clinton has been up by eight points. Well, every day is a new day. Every day things move in a different direction. If you look at the polls and we're going to show you in a minute, if you look more importantly where the candidates think the races are competitive, forget about all of us. Hillary is going to Detroit. They are having their huge finale in Philadelphia. The Clinton campaign - they know those states are competitive now. We have five days left. As I was saying when everybody said it was over three weeks ago, there's two weeks left. There are five days left. I don't think there's anybody on the face of the Earth that would
not say that Trump has had the momentum for the past week. We got to wait and see. Does that momentum last for another -- I think it's a two-point race, maybe a three-point race but another five days of momentum, anything is possible.WILLIE GEIST: He’s got the momentum but the reason it's not 50-50 is because of what Mark said: the map. It's still very hard to put together a map for Donald Trump. Now, having said that, all these states -- just a couple weeks ago the Clinton campaign was so confident that the story was they are going to play in red states, maybe Utah is on the board, maybe Texas is on the board. Georgia, Arizona. All of these places you could usually paint red. Now those are starting to widen. You see Trump's lead getting bigger in those states with the exception of Georgia and now if you pick up the paper today places like Virginia, "The Washington Post" asking is Virginia back in play? So it's gotten closer, there's no question about it. She’s still - if you were betting your house, you would bet money on her.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: So, yesterday the candidate's planes crossed each other's paths on the tarmac in Raleigh, North Carolina, hours after Donald Trump spotted Air Force One in Miami saying the President should be creating jobs and fixing Obamacare instead of campaigning. President Obama will return to New Hampshire for Hillary on Monday.
SCARBOROUGH: And there you go, that underlines what you just said about New Hampshire. Barack Obama, President of the United States, would not be going to New Hampshire.
BRZEZINSKI: That’s the President's first campaign stop there since 2012 while Vice President Joe Biden barnstorms in a late push across Pennsylvania. And later --
SCARBOROUGH: There's Pennsylvania. So much focus on Pennsylvania. I'll be the first to say whenever a Republican talks about winning Pennsylvania I just laugh but there have been these polls that show it four points, five points, two points. The internals from both campaigns suggest it's even closer than that. We're seeing the President go there. We're seeing them have their final massive rally there on Monday in Pennsylvania. A lot -- Pennsylvania getting a lot of traffic this year especially at the end.
EUGENE ROBINSON: Let's talk about these other states. When you talk about Pennsylvania, as you mentioned, Joe, this is Republicans saying this time we're going to get Pennsylvania. We're going to get Pennsylvania. They don't get Pennsylvania. They're not going to get Pennsylvania this year. They're just not.
SCARBOROUGH: When you say they're not, why is the President, the First Lady, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, they aren't all going to Pennsylvania because they want to listen great music. They're going to Pennsylvania because they want to nail it down.
ROBINSON: Well, you can hear great music in Pennsylvania, but this is what happens. Pennsylvania looks close. Democrats go into Pennsylvania and they win it. It's just historically that's what happens in Pennsylvania. I think it will almost surely happen again this year. It would --
SCARBOROUGH: Almost surely is better than it's not going to happen. We've been dealing with a lot nothing going to happen around this set for the past month. It's possible. I don't see it happening. I really don't. If Pennsylvania falls, a lot of other states are going to fall. Everybody from president Obama to Joe Biden, we got the President, Vice president, and Democratic presidential candidate going to be focusing on like a laser the last weekend.
BRZEZINSKI: …and Tim Kaine is going to finish the campaign in once thought to be safe Virginia.
(....)
6:12:56 - 6:15:23 AM
DONNIE DEUTSCH: You have to look at --- and I don’t care, I mean you guys are all professionals, you won’t say it on the air and you all agree with me. This is a dangerous, scary guy who just - and I can’t believe this is potentially happening to this country!
SCARBOROUGH: So why – why? why is this happening?
DEUTSCH: We all know the reason – because
SCARBOROUGH: Why is it getting closer?
DEUTSCH: …because there are just a lot of angry disenfranchised people out there…
SCARBOROUGH: Could it be that there are millions of people who feel the same way about Hillary Clinton?
BRZEZINSKI: Angry about what?
SCARBOROUGH: That she’s dangerous and that she should be –
DEUTSCH: I – I don’t think you can compare them, you see Donald at his core is a bad guy!
SCARBOROUGH: You see – this is the problem that Manhattan elites like us –
DEUTSCH: Oh no – don’t give me this elite stuff!
SCARBOROUGH: No, I am!
DEUTSCH: Okay!
SCARBOROUGH: People like us – like people in Georgetown, they can see how evil Donald Trump is – but because of their world view, but because of their worldview, they can’t imagine that people in Middle America feel just as strongly about Hillary Clinton –
DEUTSCH: Oh I can imagine it!
SCARBOROUGH: - think that she should be indicted, think that she and her husband have gotten away with everything in the past 30, 40 years -
BRZEZINSKI: Similar!
SCARBOROUGH: - think that there’s not much a difference between the two, so why no vote for change!
DEUTSCH: That’s obvious!
SCARBOROUGH: I am not saying that’s how I feel – I am just saying though, when you give your sermon, I could find somebody in Manhattan, Kansas sitting right next to you give just as a compelling argument on why they can't believe people like you would vote for Hillary.
DEUTSCH: Damn straight. Absolutely!
BRZEZINSKI: So, on this…
SCARBOROUGH: So, would that be legitimate? If somebody from Manhattan, Kansas was sitting next to you --
DEUTSCH: Of course, everybody’s opinion is – it is, I am just stunned and am upset and worried…
BRZEZINSKI: First on this, C.W. Cook writes in the National Review: “Democrats have run out of language to use against Republicans. Really? Obama thought Romney was a normal Republican because that's not how it came across at the time. Sure in 2012 Obama ran a commercial arguing that Romney wasn't one of us and sure, Joe Biden said Romney would put African-Americans back in chains, sure Harry Reid accused Romney of being a tax cheat and scoundrel. But in retrospect, he was fine in fact, he was no threat at all. Chill. Fair as charges so often are against Trump, I can't help but think that I would be watching similar accusations leveled against the Republican choice whoever he or she was. As has been observed by men smarter than I, crying wolf has its drawbacks. When the rhetoric used to describe Donald Trump and Mitt Romney is indistinguishable to all but the most tuned in- something has gone seriously wrong in our culture.”
SCARBOROUGH: I couldn’t agree more ---
(....)
6:32:33 – 6:33:59 AM
SCARBOROUGH: I think we have to stop here. I think this is one of those times where we need a time-out and we have to say time-out. It's remarkable that back in the fall last summer when everybody said we were crazy for saying Donald Trump could win the nomination, people freaked out. They freaked out for six or eight months. Then they were saying that we somehow caused it to happen – that we were rooting for it to happen when I actually said in December three months before the first vote was cast that I would not be voting for Donald Trump but they were freaking out. "The New York Times" had all of these stupid things that had Marco Rubio -- remember, Marco was going to win even on the day he was announcing, I think "The New York Times" said Marco was going to win. I had never seen anything like it. So, I understand people hating Donald Trump and being scared of Donald Trump. I understand that – completely, but I don’t understand people incapable of doing their job and being so blinded, it happened before and it’s happening again now – we’ve had people on this show saying that there is no rational way that any rational person could see Donald Trump getting to 270. Well, I don't know if Nate Silver is not rationale.
(....)
6:34:48 – 6:36:06 AM
SCARBOROUGH: Again, this is what the media – they’re busy looking at everybody else. I include myself in this. We’re kind of at the center of it. When this election is over, they need to look at just how poorly of a job they did. You've got editorial pages for a reason. I even like news analysis on the front page. I love those fact checkers even though they're biased --
BRZEZINSKI: Laughter – Joe!
SCARBOROUGH: That a lot of times it's absolute nonsense!
BRZEZINSKI: Stay on point!
SCARBOROUGH: -- but you have to have a place where we can go and get straight analysis and we don't have that. I won’t even say – I saw something last night late that was staggering that somebody was attacked because they simply said Donald Trump may have had a slight tiny chance of getting elected president.
BRZEZINSKI: So, where are we then?
SCARBOROUGH: Well, let's go through the states. Let's see how irrational it is. Again, Nate Silver would tell you the same thing, so ‘save your stupid right wing whatever –
BRZEZINSKI: Alright – be nice…
SCARBOROUGH: -- because I'm not voting for him.’ Okay!? So, New Hampshire is a state where last week somebody said not a rational person could ever say Donald Trump could win New Hampshire. There was no pathway there. Let's look at some polls that came out in New Hampshire.
(....)
6:39:08 – 6:39:27 AM
SCARBOROUGH: I don't want you to think three minutes from now that anybody here is rooting for Donald Trump because we're not –
BRZEZINSKI: Joe, too much…
GEIST: Joe, I have a question…
SCARBOROUGH: Let me finish this exercise because ‘This is impossible. This will never happen’ - God, you people, you need to do your job and be journalists. You're really disgusting.
BRZEZINSKI: Oh Come on! That's not nice!
SCARBOROUGH: So, It's not nice….
(....)
6:43:47 – 6:44:36 AM
DEUTSCH: Obviously it's completely open at this point. We're burying the lead. You all know it. We're five days away from potentially electing a dangerous man as the head of this country. This is not funny. This is not score keeping. You all know it. You're all parents. This is not funny anymore.
BRZEZINSKI: It's not just score keeping.
SCARBOROUGH: Why are you talking to us? I don't understand. \
DEUTSCH: I’m talking to everybody, I'm talking to the world.
SCARBOROUGH: Not score keeping, what do you mean?
DEUTSCH: You’re right. It’s a given. Numbers speak for themselves.
SCARBOROUGH: If you are afraid that this may happen, you need somebody like me and the Clintons need somebody like me and Mika and Willie and Mark, saying ‘this could happen’ because Hillary Clinton's greatest danger is complacency by people who have been listening to the media saying this has been over for a month.
