In a truly disgusting display on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday, co-host Joe Scarborough repeatedly accused Republicans of being in favor of elderly people – including World War II and Vietnam veterans – of dying from coronavirus. To back up his vile assertion, he repeatedly invented fake quotes, imagining GOP lawmakers saying: “Yeah, sure, senior citizens are going to die, but what the hell? We really got to get Wall Street moving again.”
The show began with a soundbite of Louisiana Senator John Kennedy on Wednesday’s Tucker Carlson Tonight expressing genuine concern over the devastating impact the prolonged national shutdown was having on the economy and millions of unemployed workers across the country. “We’ve got to open this economy. If we don’t, it’s going to collapse....When we end the shutdown, the virus is going to spread faster, that’s just a fact. And the American people understand that,” Kennedy explained.
For that, Scarborough sneered: “It’s just one of the dumbest things I’ve actually heard him say and he’s said so many stupid things over the past year, it’s hard to count.”
MSNBC made sure to edit out the part of the discussion where Kennedy talked about reopening the country in a slow and cautious manner, maintaining quarantine for the elderly and other vulnerable populations while providing them with financial support, and increasing testing for the virus.
Ignoring all of that vital context to the Senator’s comments, Scarborough then launched into an almost uninterrupted 10-minute tirade claiming that Republicans were okay with elderly Americans dying:
...the Republican Party claims to be the party of life, if you’re talking about the unborn. But if you’re the born, my god, watch out. If you’re especially in the Greatest Generation, if you’re a World War II veteran in your 90s, if you’re a Vietnam veteran in your 60s. If you’re a Korean War veteran in your 70s or 80s, well, the hell with you....there’s a growing list of Republican senators, Republican congressmen and women, White House officials, in the Republican Party, that are saying, “Yeah, sure, senior citizens are going to die, but what the hell? We really got to get Wall Street moving again. We’ve really got to get Boeing corporation moving again. We’ve really got to get these Fortune 500 companies moving again.”
Turning to the BBC’s Katty Kay, he continued imagining phony declarations from the GOP:
They’re basically saying, “Yes, older people are going to die. The Greatest Generation, a lot of people in the Greatest Generation are going to die.” You know, these same people who tear up on, you know, June the 6th, every June the 6th, about what happened at Normandy. But now, because corporate profits for Boeing and other Fortune 500 companies are going down and the stock market is struggling, they’re saying, “Well, yeah, they’re gonna die. Yeah, we know older people are gonna die. The Greatest Generation, a lot of people are going to die there. A lot of people are going to die that are Korean War vets and Vietnam vets. But you know what? We have gotta get Wall Street purring again.” It’s really – it’s an astonishing argument from the, quote, “party of life.”
Kay agreed and joined in fabricating quotes: “Yeah, I mean, I suspect what they’re really saying is that, ‘Your older people are going to die, but I’m going to do all I can to protect my parents and my grandparents, and I’ll leave that problem with you.’”
“Mika, we’re seeing a lot of senior citizens who are in the United States Senate saying, ‘Ah, the hell with it, let old people die, let’s open up the economy,’” Scarborough ranted to his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski. He also decided to inject some class warfare into the mix:
...what they’re saying is, “You know, we’re rich enough to take care of ourselves in the White House. We’re rich enough on talk radio to take care of ourselves. We’re rich enough in the United States Senate, or cloistered enough in the United States Senate, to take care of ourselves, so you’re not going see us going out eating at restaurants. You’re not going to see us going out with the economy started back up. But we’re going to push the President and other people and governors to put political pressure on to get other people out there. And yes, they’re going to die, but what can you do? They’re not in the 1%.” That’s their attitude, Mika. There’s no other way to put it.
Scarborough wrapped up his deranged attack by declaring: “They’re going to stay cloistered behind the gates of their homes....their argument is, make no mistake of it, and it’s a growing argument in Donald Trump’s Republican Party, ‘Yeah, senior citizens are gonna die, but you know what, the bottom line is more important.’”
The anchor has been working on his abhorrent, self-righteous spiel for weeks. On March 26, he accused Republicans of being monsters who wanted to “euthanize” senior citizens.
Here is a transcript of the opening segment on the April 16 Morning Joe:
12:26 PM ET
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY [R-LA]: Very, very soon, the can is going to run out of road. We’ve got to open this economy. If we don’t, it’s going to collapse. And if the U.S. economy collapses, the world economy collapses. And trying to burn down the village to save it is foolish. Yes, we shut down. But the shutdown did not stop the spread of the virus. The shutdown slowed the spread of the virus at enormous cost, but it’s still spreading. When we end the shutdown, the virus is going to spread faster, that’s just a fact. And the American people understand that.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Republican Senator John Kennedy of hard-hit Louisiana, that states should reopen, despite acknowledging that would accelerate the spread of this deadly virus.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It’s just one of the dumbest things I’ve actually heard him say and he’s said so many stupid things over the past year, it’s hard to count. I mean, he’s from a state that, again, everybody went to Mardi Gras. When out to Mardi Gras and spread the coronavirus across the country. It’s just like Florida having spring break. And you can actually see where that spring break spread hit a lot of people east of the Mississippi River.
But you know, there’s something I don’t understand. You have people like Senator Kennedy, and a lot of other Trump supporters, and a lot of Americans, rightly, were so offended and shocked and upset, like I was, when 3,000 Americans died at the hands of Islamic terrorism on 9/11, right?
BRZEZINSKI: We’re at 30,000.
SCARBOROUGH: So now, we’re at ten times that.
(...)
6:02 AM
SCARBOROUGH: But you know, Willie, I don’t even – this is a guy – I think he went to Oxford, he was a big John Kerry supporter. A man about town, obviously. Very, very erudite, or however they say that in Oxford. But he says in his corn pone made-up accent that, “Yeah, closed down, people still died.” He knows that without the social distancing, he knows without the lockdowns, he knows this. He may be playing stupid on TV. He may be acting like he’s dumb as dish water on TV, but he knows that without the social distancing, instead of 30,000 people dead right now, it would probably be 300,000 people dead right now. He also has to know that if we reopen the government too quickly, without the testing, if we reopen the economy without widespread testing, a lot more people are going to die.
And here it comes, here’s the punchline, John Kennedy, I like how you talk like that, Mr. Oxford. You know, he actually talks like Sherlock Holmes when he’s behind closed doors in his house. And he has an eye patch and a top hat and smokes a pipe. But he knows, Willie, that it’s the businesses, the small business owners that you and I know, and Mika knows so well, that own family businesses and own small restaurants and small bars and small shops, they’re the ones that are going to be hurt the most if we reopen the businesses and then they have to shut down again because Donald Trump still refuses to act in a strong manner on testing. It’s just stupid and short-sighted. And he knows it.
WILLIE GEIST: Senator Kennedy knows everything you just said. And the reason we know he knows it is because that’s effectively what he said in that interview last night. He said, “We’ve got to open up the economy. A bunch of people are going to get sick, but that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.” And by the way, that’s not exactly a fringe view among many Republicans. The President effectively is saying that. He wants to open the economy, knowing all the costs that come with that. You had an Indiana congressman putting it two days ago this way, “It’s the lesser of two evils.” A lot of older people may die, but younger people will have their businesses open, the economy can get restarted. This is not worth the tradeoff, we need to open the economy again.”
So what Senator Kennedy said last night opened a lot of eyes, but it’s not exactly something we haven’t heard, all the way from the White House, and that we’re going to hear again today as the President announces that he’s going to tell some governors of some states that he has deemed, based on some data he says he sees, he’s going to tell them they can open for business. And as Senator Kennedy said, a lot of people will get sick because of it.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, you know, the thing is, Willie, there was somebody who claims to be a, quote, “newsman,” who’s anything but, who took great offense at me several weeks ago, saying that the Republican Party claims to be the party of life, if you’re talking about the unborn. But if you’re the born, my god, watch out. If you’re especially in the greatest generation, if you’re a World War II veteran in your 90s, if you’re a Vietnam veteran in your 60s.
BRZEZINSKI: If you’re in Donald Trump or John Kennedy’s generation.
SCARBOROUGH: If you’re a Korean War veteran in your 70s or 80s, well, the hell with you. Because I can – you’re right, there’s a growing list of Republican senators, Republican congressmen and women, White House officials, in the Republican Party, that are saying, “Yeah, sure, senior citizens are going to die, but what the hell? We really got to get Wall Street moving again. We’ve really got to get Boeing corporation moving again. We’ve really got to get these Fortune 500 companies moving again.”
And let’s bring in Jonathan Lemire and Katty. Katty, they’re not even being subtle about it. Like they’re not even being subtle. They’re basically saying, “Yes, older people are going to die. The Greatest Generation, a lot of people in the Greatest Generation are going to die.” You know, these same people who tear up on, you know, June the 6th, every June the 6th, about what happened at Normandy. But now, because corporate profits for Boeing and other Fortune 500 companies are going down and the stock market is struggling, they’re saying, “Well, yeah, they’re gonna die. Yeah, we know older people are gonna die. The Greatest Generation, a lot of people are going to die there. A lot of people are going to die that are Korean War vets and Vietnam vets. But you know what? We have gotta get Wall Street purring again.” It’s really – it’s an astonishing argument from the, quote, “party of life.”
KATTY KAY: Yeah, I mean, I suspect what they’re really saying is that, “Your older people are going to die, but I’m going to do all I can to protect my parents and my grandparents, and I’ll leave that problem with you.”
(...)
6:08 AM
SCARBOROUGH: Mika, we’re seeing a lot of senior citizens who are in the United States Senate saying, “Ah, the hell with it, let old people die, let’s open up the economy.” A lot of talk radio senior citizens are saying, “The hell with it, let’s open up the economy.” A lot of people on pro-Trump cable news shows are saying the same thing. A lot of older people in the White House are saying it. But what they’re saying is – yeah, what they’re saying is, “You know, we’re rich enough to take care of ourselves in the White House.”
BRZEZINSKI: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: “We’re rich enough on talk radio to take care of ourselves. We’re rich enough in the United States Senate, or cloistered enough in the United States Senate, to take care of ourselves, so you’re not going see us going out eating at restaurants. You’re not going to see us going out with the economy started back up. But we’re going to push the President and other people and governors to put political pressure on to get other people out there. And yes, they’re going to die, but what can you do? They’re not in the 1%.”
That’s their attitude, Mika. There’s no other way to put it. And again, I don’t even want to mention their names because they’re so disgusting, but people that used to serve in other administrations, people who used to have good reputations, people who were on talk radio, people who were on cable news, like, they’re telling other old people, “Yeah, you’re gonna have to die. Get over it. We got to get Wall Street started again.” But you’re not gonna see them have family reunions in a barn in central Louisiana. Like, inviting a thousand strange people to just kind of rummage. You know why? Because they know that they don’t want their family members to die. They’re going to stay cloistered behind the gates of their homes. They’re going to stay cloistered in the United States Senate. They’re going to stay cloistered where they stay cloistered and say, again, their argument is, make no mistake of it, and it’s a growing argument in Donald Trump’s Republican Party, “Yeah, senior citizens are gonna die, but you know what, the bottom line is more important.”
(...)
