MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, who provided cushy, supportive coverage of Donald Trump during the 2016 primaries before flip flopping, on Sunday reacted to the lack of collusion and obstruction in the Mueller Report by comparing the President to the ‘stumbling,” lying” “Mr. Magoo” cartoon character.
Scarborough at first conceded that Trump not colluding with the Russians is “good news for Americans.” But then he shifted into grumble mode, insisting, “Donald Trump may just be a political version of Mr. Magoo.” The Morning Joe host fumed, “He may be a guy who just stumbles and bumbles around from one lie to — from one thing to another and in this case, as it pertained to Russia, there were — there were several lies that, again, probably centered more around Donald Trump's business dealings.”
Anchor Katy Tur tried to look on the bright side of Sunday’s bad day for liberals: “They might not have conspired directly with Russians, according to Mueller, who has exonerated the President and his team on that and his orbit on that, but they definitely benefitted from what happened in the 2016 election.”
Scarborough shifted the subject away from the Mueller report and vented: “You look to his business dealings, and money that he's made in the past and money he hopes to make in the future and I think at the end of the day, just simple, pure greed probably accounts for much of what we've seen over the past few years.”
He ended by providing home for liberals, reminding that there are many more investigations out there:
Robert Mueller completed his investigation, and he found that the President of the United States did not collude with Russia. That is good news. But as Jonathan Turley said on our show a year-and-a-half ago and as most legal scholars have said to you and to Ari and to other people on this network, Donald Trump's greatest threat legally does not come from Robert Mueller and you can — you can look at the tape. This is not Monday morning quarterbacking after Robert Mueller has come in and said there was no collusion. Legal scholars have said time and time again, at least on our show and on your show, that the greatest threat that Donald Trump faces legally is from the Southern District of New York. That was true before today. That's true after today and there are a lot of questions to still be answered.
Partial transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read more:
MSNBC Live
03/24/19
4:49:41 p.m.
3 minutes and 57 seconds
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Again, what the president says one minute doesn't actually mean much the next minute. So we'll — we'll just wait and see what happens, but it is interesting. The President said a few things, in very brief press conference that obviously, again, fact — just requires fact checking once. The first thing he said was that it was a complete exoneration and it certainly was a complete exoneration on the issue of collusion and that is not just good news for Donald Trump. That is good news for Americans that the sitting President of the United States did not, in fact, collude with Vladimir Putin and Russia. So that's very good news. He — he — he said that it was an exhaustive investigation that also completely exonerated him on obstruction of justice as you've been reporting, as everybody has been reporting. That actually is a question that still remains up in the air. But there wasn't enough evidence for Bob Mueller to even say that even if a President could be indicted, that this president could be indicted for obstruction of justice and so he didn't meet that standard and so by Justice Department guidelines, that's that and the Justice Department shouldn't be talking about it. He did say, though, that he was a victim of all of these attacks.
But many bad things happened on the other side. He, of course, was talking about the Democratic side with Hillary Clinton's campaign and said that they had not looked at the other side. I would suggest that Hillary Clinton and members of her campaign and I think a lot of people that covered the 2016 campaign like yourself would say that that — that's just a ridiculous statement on its face. The fact of the matter is, the FBI conducted an exhaustive investigation for over a year on Hillary Clinton, her use of a lot of information was leaked throughout the course of the campaign that damaged Hillary Clinton's campaign. The Comey letter, of course, ten days beforehand helped elect her — helped elect Donald Trump President of the United States. So, again, many things just not accurate on their — on their face. But at the same time, this was a very good day for the president of the United States politically and I would suggest also for Americans who want to be assured that somebody like Robert Mueller could exhaustively into this matter for two years and find that the President did not collude with Russia. That’s great news, as well.
I will say, though, Donald Trump could have made things much easier on himself and the administration could have made things much easier on themselves if they hadn't lied repeatedly. This is something — let's just — everybody take a deep breath. Great news the president did not collude, but this investigation did not arise out of thin air. The President of the United States lied on the campaign trail. He said they never had any contact with Russians during the campaign. That obviously was a lie. Mike Pence said in January of 2017, nobody on the Trump campaign ever talked to Russians. That was a lie.
Jeff Sessions lied in front of the Senate during testimony about contacts that he had had with Russians. That's why he had to recuse himself. Jared Kushner, several times, lied on his disclosure forms regarding meetings with Russians. Again, I think one of the questions that will remain for quite some time is that if there was no collusion and we can be convinced of that today, why did Donald Trump and why did his administration and why did everybody close to him lie about contacts that they had with Russia throughout the course of the campaign? And I guess the answer to that may just be pure basic greed. He wanted to build a tower in Moscow.
(....)
4:54:20 p.m.
3 minutes and 14 seconds
SCARBOROUGH: There were people were sent to jail for lying to Robert Mueller for lying about contacts with Russia, their contacts with Russian oligarchs. Paul Manafort got arrested, continued to lie. Rick Gates got arrested, continued to lie during his proffer, made matters much worse for him. A man that Donald Trump told The Washington Post was one of his top foreign policy advisers lied. You had — you know, national security adviser. I mean, we haven't even talked about General Flynn lying about a conversation that he had with the Russian ambassador and the list goes on and on and like you said, a lot of people indicted. A lot of Russians indicted, almost 200 charges brought during the course of this — during the course of this investigation and, again, the mystery here is, if there was no collusion, and I think what reporters need to dig into is need to figure out why did Donald Trump, why did Mike Pence, why did Jeff Sessions, why did the President's first National Security Adviser, why did the President's campaign chairman, why did the President's assistant campaign chairman, why did the President's son-in-law -- why did they all lie about contacts with Russians? And again —
KATY: TUR: They might not have conspired directly with Russians, according to Mueller, who has exonerated the President and his team on that and his orbit on that, but they definitely benefitted from what happened in the 2016 election and there still are questions about why Donald Trump, why he would ask Russia to find Hillary Clinton's e-mails. We know from a Mueller indictment that that very night that Russians did try to hack into her personal e-mails, why did he do that? Why did he wave the Wikileaks findings around so much? Why was he so willing to use information that was potentially ill-gotten from a foreign government to slander his opponent?
SCARBOROUGH: Well, you know, the thing is, Donald Trump may just be a political version of Mr. Magoo. He may just stumble — and you are too young to know who Mr. Magoo is, but he may just be —
TUR: I know who Mr. Magoo is, excuse me.
SCARBOROUGH: — okay — he — he may be a guy who just stumbles and bumbles around from one lie to — from one thing to another and in this case, as it pertained to Russia, there were — there were several lies that, again, probably centered more around Donald Trump's business dealings and his — as I’ve said and a lot of people have said, if you want to understand what Donald Trump does, if you want to understand Donald Trump's foreign policy towards Saudi Arabia or his leniency toward the Philippines or Turkey or Russia, you don't look to — to foreign policy. You look — you look to his business dealings, and money that he's made in the past and money he hopes to make in the future and I think at the end of the day, just simple, pure greed probably accounts for much of what we've seen over the past few years.
(....)
4:59:50 p.m.
48 seconds
SCARBOROUGH: Robert Mueller completed his investigation, and he found that the President of the United States did not collude with Russia. That is good news. But as Jonathan Turley said on our show a year-and-a-half ago and as most legal scholars have said to you and to Ari and to other people on this network, Donald Trump's greatest threat legally does not come from Robert Mueller and you can — you can look at the tape. This is not Monday morning quarterbacking after Robert Mueller has come in and said there was no collusion. Legal scholars have said time and time again, at least on our show and on your show, that the greatest threat that Donald Trump faces legally is from the Southern District of New York. That was true before today. That's true after today and there are a lot of questions to still be answered.
