Amid plenty of laughter from the panel, MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough’s Wednesday reaction to the State of the Union was more cathartic group therapy than serious analysis as he wasted no time in calling Republicans “stupid” and “the dumbest political party that’s ever existed” while labeling them “jackasses” for daring to object to President Biden’s lie about them cutting Social Security and Medicare.
Morning Joe kicked off the program with a highly and selectively edited montage of Biden’s speech as well as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s response. The quick edits made it look like Biden was an uplifting unifier while Sanders was a bitter divider.
Of course, Sanders’s whole job was to provide a rebuttal to Biden’s self-congratulatory speech and five second clips can be deceiving, but facts were in short supply as co-host Mika Brzezinski led off, “Very different tones last night between President Biden’s mostly optimistic looking State of the Union—”
An overly theatrical Scarborough then interrupted, “Wait, wait, wait! Can't anybody play this game! Why is my former party so stupid?”
Brzezinski then tried to claim that Biden plaid Republicans like a fiddle, “he fed it to them and they – boop.”
Scarborough agreed:
We said yesterday on the show, Republicans, he wants you to yell. He wants you to shout. As my grandmom from Dalton, Georgia, would say, he wants you to act like you were raised in a barn. Good job. You did all of those things. No, Willie, seriously. I swear to God, I said this a couple weeks ago, I really do think that there is a plant inside the RNC. And it is a Democrat that was planted in there somewhere like 2013, 2014 with the sole purpose of making Republicans the dumbest political party that's ever existed. Like, Biden didn't even have to give a good speech last night. The Republicans time and again just alley-oop—
After Brzezinski interjected with, “Helped make it amazing,” Scarborough added “Boom. Set up one jam after another.”
Later in the discussion, Scarborough came to Biden’s defense on the claim that Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare:
And then -- and then, this is the one that gets me, when talking about how –talking about sunsetting Social Security and Medicare every five years, nobody dreamed that up. That was the head of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee. He won't say his name. I will say his name. Say his name. Rick Scott, the most powerful Republican in the United States Senate for running campaigns. So they're acting like jackasses because they can't deal with the truth, just can't deal with the truth. And they make themselves look foolish.
Speaking of not being able to deal with the truth, Scott was the most powerful Senate Republican campaigner, but he’s since been demoted. Meanwhile, the actual legislative leaders, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, have said no, the former as recently as Monday.
This segment was sponsored by Sleep Number.
Here is a transcript for the February 8 show:
MSNBC Morning Joe
2/8/2023
6:01 AM ET
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Very different tones last night between President Biden’s mostly optimistic looking State of the Union—
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Wait, wait, wait! Can't anybody play this game! Why is my former party—
BRZEZINSKI: No—
SCARBOROUGH: -- so stupid?
BRZEZINSKI: Babe, they like -- he fed it to them and they – boop—
SCARBOROUGH: The booing—
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: The -- like, we said yesterday on the show, Republicans, he wants you to yell. He wants you to shout. As my grandmom—
BRZEZINSKI: Please bring a balloon.
SCARBOROUGH: -- from Dalton, Georgia, would say, he wants you to act like you were raised in a barn. Good job. You did all of those things. No, Willie, seriously. I swear to God, I said this a couple weeks ago, I really do think that there is a plant inside the RNC.
And it is a Democrat that was planted in there somewhere like 2013, 2014 with the sole purpose of making Republicans the dumbest political party that's ever existed. Like, Biden didn't even have to give a good speech last night. The Republicans time and again just alley-oop--
BRZEZINSKI: Helped make it amazing.
SCARBOROUGH: -- Boom. Set up one jam after another.
…
SCARBOROUGH: And then -- and then, this is the one that gets me, when talking about how –talking about sunsetting Social Security and Medicare every five years, nobody dreamed that up. That was the head of the Republican Senate Campaign Committee. He won't say his name. I will say his name. Say his name. Rick Scott, the most powerful Republican in the United States Senate for running campaigns. So they're acting like jackasses because they can't deal with the truth, just can't deal with the truth. And they make themselves look foolish.
