On Monday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and his wife/co-host Mika Brzezinski spent much of Morning Joe deriding both speakers and attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference. Scarborough, Brzezinski, and their various guests alternated taking jabs at conservatives and CPAC as a whole.
The nasty host played several clips of former President Trump speaking at the conference, but asked his production team to “turn [the clip] off,” because he couldn’t tolerate listening to Trump's voice and mocked CPAC speakers who attended Ivy League schools but advocated against elitism.
NewsBusters’ Mark Finkelstein cleverly pointed out Scarborough’s blatant hypocrisy. In the midst of bashing elitists, Scarborough bragged twice that — although he didn’t attend an Ivy League school — he had, in fact, employed several Ivy Leaguers since he was “twenty-three, twenty-four.” Denouncing elitism while conceding that he benefited from it. Classic.
Minutes later, guest Mara Gay from The New York Times Editorial Board had perhaps the most absurd attacks on the gathering of conservative activists in Florida. According to Gay, CPAC was nothing more than a “festival of toxic masculinity”:
“That's true. But, at the same time, it's hard to miss the fact that Trumpism has won. And, you know, it's amazing—as a woman—watching that footage because it really is just like a festival of toxic masculinity. And you’re watching this and after everything Donald Trump gets up there and starts talking about, you know, gleefully talking about, bragging about he owns the Republican Party. And so all those men that got up there before him, I assume, I assume he was, you know, one of their keynote speakers, were essentially bragging about how they got owned by Donald Trump. And on top of everything, you just have to wonder—I mean, these people call themselves leaders? I mean, it is really the most cowardly form of political leadership we have ever seen. They can’t stand up to him; they can’t stand up to his movement. And they can't even bother to tell his supporters the truth.”
It’s apparent she didn’t spend much time preparing for the segment because Gay’s assertion is demonstrably and provably false. There was, in fact, a prodigious amount of both female speakers and female attendees at the conservative conference.
Scarborough didn’t question or offer any pushback on Gay’s comments. Instead, he laughed and then went on to rave about how good President Biden’s approval rating has been thus far in his presidency.
The unhinged host then analogized former President Trump to the most infamous traitor of the American Revolutionary War, Benedict Arnold, and explained to viewers that his rant was justified because of Trump’s heinous actions over the past four years:
“So, if you’re sitting there, like, why are you playing this? Because, you know, if Benedict Arnold had been invited to CPAC after, uh, he switched sides, we’d probably, probably, be running a Benedict Arnold two-hour rant as well.”
MSNBC’s relentless bashing of Republicans and CPAC attendees was brought to you, in part, by Amazon. You can contact this advertiser, and others, via the Conservatives Fight Back page, conveniently linked here.
Click "Expand" to read the entire March 1 transcript:
Morning Joe
03/01/2021
06:18 AM Eastern
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Wow, uh, well, here we go. Uh, it was really hard to believe that this is what we had for four years. Here’s some of President Trump’s hour-plus speech, yesterday, at CPAC—complete with an enemies list.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Oh, how Nixonian of him.
[CUTS TO CLIPS OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SPEECH AT CPAC]
SCARBOROUGH: Let’s just turn him off. I can’t. I mean, seriously? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I can’t. I can’t listen to it. You know, um—
BRZEZINSKI: It really is hard.
SCARBOROUGH: Mara Gay, that was painful; that was a—that was a long four years. Um, but you know what’s interesting, Mara, is he’s talking about, oh we’ve got the Republican Party, we don’t need whatever. Well, this was like the most hardcore, of the most hardcore, wing of the Republican Party, self-selected Trumpers who knew he was going to speak, and he still only gets fifty-five percent of the Straw Vote. And somebody called and said, how is that? I said, well, you know, if Barack Obama could run another term, and they had a Straw Poll, at a PAC, Barack Obama would get about ninety percent—maybe ninety-five percent. I mean, for Donald Trump to be sitting at fifty-five percent—I mean, I’m not so sure, in fact, I know, those numbers are much lower than, I’m sure he and everybody else there was expecting.
MARA GAY [NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER]: That's true. But, at the same time, it's hard to miss the fact that Trumpism has won. And, you know, it's amazing—as a woman—watching that footage because it really is just like a festival of toxic masculinity.
SCARBOROUGH: Ha!
GAY: And you’re watching this and after everything Donald Trump gets up there and starts talking about, you know, gleefully talking about, bragging about he owns the Republican Party. And so all those men that got up there before him, I assume, I assume he was, you know, one of their keynote speakers, were essentially bragging about how they got owned by Donald Trump. And on top of everything, you just have to wonder—I mean, these people call themselves leaders? I mean, it is really the most cowardly form of political leadership we have ever seen. They can’t stand up to him; they can’t stand up to his movement. And they can't even bother to tell his supporters the truth.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. And, you know, if you look also at all the attacks that were being launched against Joe Biden, um, I mean, we showed the polls last week. This is The Hill and their Harris Poll that actually has Joe Biden at 59% and disapproval only 41%. A Pew Research poll that was taken right after the insurrection, Donald Trump’s insurrection, had him at 29%. Uh, disapproval at 68%. He's probably up in the 30s now, high-30s, mid-30s, high-30s; one or two might even have him in the low-40s. Rasmussen has him at 98%. Uh, so we'll have to look more closely into that. But, again, it seemed like such an extraordinarily irrelevant, uh, uh, irrelevant occurrence. Uh, but obviously when you have a guy that tried to, um, commit insurrection against the United States of America and he speaks for the first time since that insurrection, uh, that actually is news. So, if you’re sitting there, like, why are you playing this? Because, you know, if Benedict Arnold had been invited to CPAC after, uh, he switched sides, we’d probably, probably, be running a Benedict Arnold two-hour rant as well.
