During Wednesday’s edition of Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough took shots at former Clinton pollster Mark Penn, who wrote an op-ed in The Hill entitled “Stopping Robert Mueller to Protect Us All.” Scarborough tried to impugn Penn’s motives for advocating an end to the Russia investigation, wondering “what is Mark Penn selling coming to the defense of Donald J. Trump” and repeatedly asking if he has “a Fox News contract?”
Towards the beginning of the segment, Scarborough dismissed the idea that a deep state” tried to prevent President Trump from winning the election: “Everything the FBI did in the home stretch was to Donald Trump’s benefit and Hillary Clinton’s detriment.”
Panelist Willie Geist then introduced the Axios CEO and cofounder Jim VandeHei to discuss a recent Axios piece called “The anti-Mueller Brigade.” While Geist pointed out that the “anti-Mueller Brigade” largely consists of the House Freedom Caucus and Fox News hosts, VandeHei described the remainder of the “brigade” as a “motley crew of 1990s figures, your Rudy Giulianis, your Alan Dershowitz, Mark Penn, who was with the Clintons then and now is very sort of pro-Trump at least on the…arguments about this case.”
Scarborough eventually asked VandeHei what Penn was doing, dismissing the former Clinton operative as the “guy who lost Hillary Clinton’s campaign by telling her she didn’t have to plan 2008 for any contests after Super Tuesday.” VandeHei explained that Penn opposes this Special Counsel investigation for the same reasons he opposed the Special Counsel investigation of the 1990s that put a cloud over Bill Clinton’s presidency.”
VandeHei then pointed out that Penn is “getting trashed by Democrats now obviously for coming to the defense of Donald Trump.” Fellow civil libertarian Alan Dershowitz, who has also become skeptical of the Mueller investigation, would argue that skepticism of Mueller has little to do with supporting President Trump, but instead setting a dangerous precedent that will lead future politicians using intelligence agencies to go after their political opponents.
Scarborough couldn’t seem to believe why any Democrat would want to come to President Trump’s defense:
Does he have a Fox, does he have a Fox News contract? Is he writing for conservative websites? I want to know as you know in Washington, D.C., often when people do strange things like this, creatures of The Swamp, they’re doing it for a reason. Is he, has he got a Fox News contract? Does he show up on Fox News a lot?
VandeHei replied that Penn's column originally appeared in The Hill: “I don’t know if he has a contract with Fox. I don’t think he’s a known conservative.” VandeHei then said that, nonetheless, his support for ending the Special Counsel investigation upsets Democrats because they fear many in the American public will think “wait this person used to work with Clinton and they’re with Trump, maybe Trump is right.”
MSNBC's Morning Joe
05/23/18
06:42 AM
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, as is the fact, Willie that there was some conspiracy by Justice and the FBI in the Obama administration, to rig the election. If that were the case and they were all characters out of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy and probably watered their grass with Gatorade, because after all, the investigation into Donald Trump’s possible contacts with Russia was kept quiet while Hillary Clinton got a letter from the FBI ten days beforehand, that was absolutely devastating to her campaign. Everything the FBI did in the home stretch was to Donald Trump’s benefit and Hillary Clinton’s detriment, including McCabe’s leak. Now, for somebody not to understand that, I mean, seriously, suggests only one thing -- and that is, they are either intentionally lying or they are too stupid to handle household appliances. I leave it to you, Willie to decide which it is.
WILLIE GEIST: I can’t believe it’s the appliance part, toasters aren’t that hard so it has to be the willful thing. I mean, these are the same people who celebrated James Comey coming out with that letter. Remember James Comey was the boogeyman for the Clinton campaign and the reason a lot of people around her, in support of her think she lost and now that narrative has been flipped on a total 180 by the Trump White House. There’s another angle to this story and for that we want to go to the cofounder and CEO of Axios, Jim VandeHei. This morning, Axios is looking at the “anti-Mueller brigade.” Jim, good morning. This is, this is quite a crew assembled, including Mark Penn, a guy who worked on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, was a chief strategist in 2008, who ran Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996, was part of the team there. You put him together with the Freedom Caucus and some Fox News and you’ve got the “anti-Mueller brigade.”
JIM VANDEHEI: Yeah, well think about this as a public debate. You have Mueller doing what he should do, which he’s saying nothing. And so he’s not in the debate. Occasionally he’ll offer an indictment and some clues, but he’s not really backing up sort of his case and won’t until the final argument. On the other side, you do have that vacuum being increasingly filled by this brigade of people who are trying to undermine not just Mueller now, but sort of the origins of this investigation in the beginning. And it’s sort of two squads. You got this motley crew of 1990s figures, your Rudy Giulianis, your Alan Dershowitz, Mark Penn, who was with the Clintons then and now is very sort of pro-Trump at least on the, on the arguments about this case. And then you’ve got these members of congress; not all members. But we have 19 or whatever it was, standing up there saying that we want to find out information about this informant, echoing a lot of, there’s a mole in the campaign type rhetoric. That stuff’s successful, because you look at the polls and you see Republicans are deeply skeptical of Mueller, are deeply skeptical of this investigation. And so it’s a PR campaign and it’s a pretty successful PR campaign, that to what you guys are talking about, could be really damaging. Because even if the Trump lovers that are watching the show, if you go back, no responsible FBI would have heard the things that they heard and not looked into it. And when you start to look into it, you always use informants, you always use all the tools you have at your disposal to figure out, is there truth to it but the more they talk about a mole and people think there’s a mole, probably the better that is for Donald Trump when he gets to the political side of this argument.
SUSAN DEL PERCIO: Jim, we know that Mueller is being silent, he’s keeping his head down. We know that there’s a lot of people who are supporting Trump who are yelling a lot. Things that we are questionable. Where are the Mueller, or at least the law enforcement supporters or the Republicans who should be speaking out against this? Where is their voice these days?
VANDEHEI: There are some conservatives, Joe mentioned a few. But there’s not a lot of prominent sort of elected officials that are defending Mueller, even those who really respect Mueller. In many ways, the defense comes from their silence. So you guys were talking about Nunes and this meeting tomorrow. Look who’s not going to that. Look who’s not playing this game. It’s Senate Republicans who are trying to protect the bipartisan nature of the intelligence apparatus of the U.S. Government. But that’s not that persuasive. Not in this age of like chaos and cable. I think what sells is Mark Penn’s columns or the tweets that come from the President of the United States. And Mueller really can’t, Mueller would destroy his own credibility if he started to make a public case before he offers his final argument. But by the time he does, this will be a political case. There’s legal dimensions obviously. But ultimately, the House of Representatives controlled by Republicans, and the Senate, controlled by Republicans, at least right now, will determine Trump’s fate. And so that’s why Trump spends a vast majority of his time ranting and raving about, about this investigation. Because he knows the more people are suspicious of it, the better and safer he is when push comes to shove with the Mueller report.
SCARBOROUGH: And I mean he’s admitted that he’s admitted off-camera to reporters, that he does it in part to discredit the press. So when they write negative stories about him, Donald Trump, that they don’t believe that. And I understand Donald Trump doing that. He’s fighting for his life. It's, it’s wrong and I think it’s extraordinarily terrible for a President to do. I am shocked that people on The Hill are doing it. But they are. Let me ask you, though, and let’s be blunt about it. What exactly is Mark Penn selling? Here’s a guy who lost Hillary Clinton’s campaign by telling her she didn’t have to plan 2008 for any contests after Super Tuesday. He left that campaign, responsible for her loss to Barack Obama. What, what is Mark Penn selling coming to the defense of Donald J. Trump?
VANDEHEI: I think he’s selling his argument, which he would argue is the same that he had for Clinton in the ‘90s, that this whole idea of Special Counsels is crazy because they have this wide license to investigate whatever they want to investigate. But clearly, he was not well liked by Democrats, if you look at Twitter, he’s getting trashed by Democrats now obviously for coming to the defense of Trump. But to your point…
SCARBOROUGH: Does he have a Fox, does he have a Fox News contract? Is he writing for conservative websites? I want to know as you know in Washington, D.C., often when people do strange things like this, creatures of The Swamp, they’re doing it for a reason. Is he, has he got a Fox News contract? Does he show up on Fox News a lot?
VANDEHEI: He wrote for The Hill, the initial column was in The Hill which we can debate whether or not it’s conservative. You guys cite their work occasionally. We cite their work occasionally. I don’t know if he has a contract with Fox. I don’t think he’s a known conservative. He is sort of a known mischief maker in Democratic politics. And I think the reason that it really frustrates Democrats in particular is because, it’s just, every time you have somebody else, most people don’t obsess about this the way we do. If they’re watching, they’re like wait this person used to work with Clinton and they’re with Trump, maybe Trump is right. And we all think like, ah, it’s just all madness with Trump. There’s a method. Don’t be, don’t fool yourself. There’s a method. He knows, he said it. If he goes after this and plants seeds of doubt over and over and over, at least 50 percent of the public over time and maybe more might agree with him. And that is the strategy, it’s been the strategy for a year. It will be the strategy until this ends and it’s why he loves Rudy because Rudy has the same grievances mentality and approach to it and now he’s got a mouthpiece as his new spokesperson.
