Joe Scarborough frequently boasts about his Baptist upbringing, steeped in the Bible. Joe might like to refresh his memory of Proverbs 24:17-18:
Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth. Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him.
Scarborough and his Morning Joe gang spent much of the opening segment of today's show rejoicing with gladdened hearts over the fall of Rudy Giuliani.
Rudy Giuliani surely brought some of his troubles on himself, but Morning Joe's elaborate schadenfreude over his apparent downfall was no less sickening for it.
The screencap shows Mika Brzezinski and Jonathan Lemire sharing a hearty laugh over Rudy's troubles.
At one point, Scarborough dismissively said that Giuliani was "the guy who once called himself America's Mayor...if he faces prison, if he faces bankruptcy, if he faces additional charges. It's, again, it's just from all directions. And this is the cost, of course, when you turn your life over to Donald Trump."
Actually, the media called Giuliani "America's Mayor" in the aftermath of 9/11. Surely, Scarborough remembers Time naming Giuliani its 2001 Person of the Year. Their headline back then was "Mayor of the World."
The normally affable Willie Geist piled on, saying that Giuliani has gone from being America's Mayor to being America's Deadbeat. That was a reference to Rudy having failed, to date, to pay $132,000 in sanctions for failing to respond to parts of a defamation lawsuit from two Georgia election workers.
Mike Barnicle was not about to show any sympathy for Rudy. Whereas it might previously have been a "sad story," Giuliani's plight is no longer sad, opined Barnicle, because Rudy has "done it to himself." (The same could be said for Mike Barnicle's rampant fabrications as a columnist.)
In the segment's most ghoulish moment, Mika Brzezinski challenged Jonathan Lemire, asking if he could "top" Geist's branding of Giuliani as America's Deadbeat. In other words, could Lemire find a way to heap even worse mockery on Rudy's head. Lemire obliged, suggesting that Rudy could be joining "the January 6th convict choir," as in the "J6 Prison Choir" whose rendition of the National Anthem topped the I-Tunes chart. That "Lock Him Up" joke earned a laugh from Mika and Joe.
They're quite explicit about this. If Giuliani had become a Never Trumper instead of a MAGA mainstay, he wouldn't be the object of Morning Joe's gleeful abuse. He'd be the toast of the show.
Remind us not to gloat if and when Hunter Biden, not to mention "The Big Guy," ever meet a fate similar to Rudy's.
Morning Joe's sickening schadenfreude over Rudy Giuliani's legal and financial problems was sponsored in part by GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Voltaren, Citi, Ring, Abbvie, maker of Skyrizi, and Chewy.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
9/22/23
6:02 am EDTMIKA BRZEZINSKI: Rudy Giuliani's legal and financial troubles are starting negotiations [sic] to catch up with him. We'll go through the federal order he ignored. Apparently, he's not paying these two women?
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.
MIKA: Yeah. And his legal fees are piling up. And Cassidy Hutchinson accused him of groping her. This guy, I mean, it just keeps coming.
SCARBOROUGH: Every day, Willie. Every day, it gets worse for the guy who once called himself America's Mayor.
It's -- I don't -- you know, I don't know if, if he faces prison, if he faces bankruptcy, if he faces additional charges.
It's, again, it's just from all directions. And this is the cost, of course, when you turn your life over to Donald Trump.
WILLIE GEIST: Yeah, America's Deadbeat, it appears. [Scarborough laughs.] He can't pay any of his legal bills. He's on the hook now for these women in Georgia, who he clearly and explicitly defamed, Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, owes them a bunch of money.
And it's only just beginning. As you say, it was all fun and games until the indictments started coming down, when he was playing along with Donald Trump, doing whatever he said around the 2020 election, around January 6th.
He had prominence, he had relevance, he was on TV all the time. And now, like for so many of the people around Donald Trump, the bill is coming due.
SCARBOROUGH: The bill is coming due.
MIKA: He doesn't have the money.
SCARBOROUGH: No. From America's Mayor to America's Deadbeat. Following Donald Trump can get you thrown in jail, or ruin you financially.
MIKE BARNICLE: You know, it used to be a sad story. You'd think of Rudy Giuliani and you'd say, what has happened to this guy? He used to be America's Mayor. It's no longer a sad story, because he has talked himself into every legal difficulty that's hanging over his head today. He's done it to himself.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.
BARNICLE: And largely selfishly for himself, thinking that he'd carve himself out a bigger role in an ensuing Trump administration, which never happened.
. . .
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, Jen, the impact of this is when he's lying about election workers in Georgia, guess what? I'm getting emails from friends aying, oh, have you heard this? There were these two women who whatever. I mean, it took off. It became very viral. He spread that lie that ended up, you know, causing great risk to them.
MIKA: Great pain to them.
SCARBOROUGH: Pain, risk, damage. People coming into their house. So, you know, he's now, he's gotta pay them off, and he doesn't have the money to pay them off.
JEN PALMIERI, former Hillary Clinton communications director: This is like, you know --this is where MAGA runs into reality in courts.
MIKA: Right, it just stops right there.
PALMIERI: All of a sudden, money is due. People are held accountable. They're under indictment. They may be going to jail. Like, it's the one place where people can still be held accountable.
. . .
MIKA: Okay, so Jonathan Lemire, America's Deadbeat, and when MAGA runs into reality, reality wins. Can you top it? Go!
JONATHAN LEMIRE: [Mika and Lemire laugh] Good morning to you guys! I, I, it does seem that America's Mayor may need more of Donald Trump's fundraisers to be able to float his legal bills.
And I guess there might be concerns whether he'd perhaps join the January 6th convict choir, which, of course [Scarborough and Mika heard laughing], has been, so many of the former, former rioters have turned to.
