When dealing with an alleged hate crime, most people are naturally concerned with the motive, but MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough is not most people. Instead, he spent Tuesday’s show being more worried about GOP Christmas cards.
Naturally, the big top of conversation was Monday’s school shooting in Nashville where a transgender individual shot and killed six people at a Christian school in a potential hate crime of revenge. After the show opened with a clip of Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett claiming no law could have prevented Monday’s events, Scarborough wasted no time in making a fool of himself, “Such a deeply offensive thing to say. It really is. I mean, if this had been a Muslim shooter, then we would have seen a thousand bills proposed for more things that Homeland Security could do.”
We have history of Muslims using AR-15s in mass shootings and Republicans still oppose banning them, so Scarborough’s attempt to be clever is not even true. If his point is that the shooter needs to be of a group Republicans allegedly hate for them to embrace gun control then the clip from Burchett, once again, proves him wrong.
Being wrong wasn’t something that was going to deter Scarborough from turning Republicans into the bad guys. A few minutes later, he told fellow co-host Willie Geist “we're letting some yahoos run around, saying there is nothing they can do about it. Well, members of Congress put their little children on Christmas cards that have AR-15s there and like, is that what Jesus wants?”
Even by MSNBC standards, tying Republican Christmas cards to a transgender shooting up a Christian school is an especially bad non-sequitur, but Scarborough wasn’t done calling Republicans bad Christians, “These people, it's just another example, and we see it all the time -- and this is also in the data -- people identify themselves as Christians who actually don't believe in the faith. That it’s like, Christian Nationalism, which, weirdly enough, bizarrely enough, ignores everything that Jesus said in the Gospels.
About an hour later, Scarborough was conversing with former Sen. Claire McCaskill when he proclaimed “But it's this hyper-individualism over the past 20 years, this extremism that says, "I want all my rights, even rights that I haven't had before. Give me more rights. I take no responsibility. And I'm going to take pictures of my children holding AR-15s" because of this sick, sick gun culture.”
Circling back to Christmas cards, Scarborough added, “That's how they celebrate Christmas on their Christmas cards. Claire, there is nothing, there is nothing normal about this and you have most Americans who are repulsed by this activity, by this behavior, by the continued killing and yet they just go on.”
Speaking of Christmas, Santa will be giving Scarborough a lump of coal this year for his deranged partisan and illogical attacks.
These segments were sponsored by Liberty Mutual.
MSNBC Morning Joe
3/28/2023
6:00 AM ET
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That is Republican Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee reacting to the deadly at an elementary school shooting in his state, telling reporters that no laws, existing or proposed could have prevented what happened yesterday in Nashville.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Such a deeply offensive thing to say. It really is. I mean, if this had been a Muslim shooter, then we would have seen a thousand bills proposed for more things that Homeland Security could do.
…
6:07
SCARBOROUGH: And we're letting some yahoos run around, saying there is nothing they can do about it. Well, members of Congress put their little children on Christmas cards that have AR-15s there and like, is that what Jesus wants? These people, it's just another example, and we see it all the time -- and this is also in the data -- people identify themselves as Christians who actually don't believe in the faith. That it’s like, Christian Nationalism, which, weirdly enough, bizarrely enough, ignores everything that Jesus said in the Gospels and instead, focuses on this hyper-
individualistic, hyper-violent, a set of facts that we even have one member of Congress whose name doesn't bear—doesn’t deserve repeating this morning, one member of Congress telling constituents that if Jesus had an AR-15, he would not have been crucified.…
7:04
SCARBOROUGH: And what's happened is that supporting the Second Amendment went from supporting people being able to have a shotgun or a handgun, which, by the way, is the only thing that is protected, actually, under the Constitution of the United States. If you read the Second Amendment and Heller.
But it's this hyper-individualism over the past 20 years, this extremism that says, "I want all my rights, even rights that I haven't had before. Give me more rights. I take no responsibility. And I'm going to take pictures of my children holding AR-15s" because of this sick, sick gun culture. That's how they celebrate Christmas on their Christmas cards. Claire, there is nothing, there is nothing normal about this and you have most Americans who are repulsed by this activity, by this behavior, by the continued killing and yet they just go on.
