Among his critics, a common knock on former President Trump was that he makes it all about himself, as when he recently analogized the murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to his own situation. Within the liberal media, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough was a leading Trump critic. Yet ironically, the Morning Joe host displays the same solipsistic tendencies as the man he loves to hate.
Those unendearing traits were on display on Monday's Morning Joe, when Scarborough was arguing that, despite Trump having comfortably won the South Carolina Republican primary, his 20 percent margin of victory was less than had been generally predicted; with Haley getting 40 percent of the vote. And he cited polling suggesting that a good chunk of Haley's voters say that they'll never vote for Trump in the general election.
NewsBusters has chronicled the way that Scarborough managed to work into the discussion of virtually anything the fact that (before he quit in the middle of a term to spend more time with his family), he used to be a congressman. Scarborough coupled that with lots of humble-bragging, as when he describes himself as "a simple country lawyer," one who "just fell off the turnip truck."
So, in making his case, Scarborough mentioned that in one primary, his opponent got 19-20 percent of the vote, and "I melted down. I thought it was the end of all time."
In a triple-header for Joe: he works in his past as a congressman, he notes that his opponent's percentage was only half of what Haley got against Trump, and yet, with false humility, he describes himself as having melted down.
There was more. As we've also documented, Scarborough likes to boast about his masculinity. In that same segment today, he described himself as "a big guy." Just last week, we caught Scarborough mocking Speaker Mike Johnson as "little." Scarborough went on to humble brag that he has problems at Morning Joe, and is just trying to avoid "flop sweat," since, as a "big guy," he sweats a lot.
Scarborough concluded by claiming, "I'm just trying to not look like Elvis '77."
Don't worry, Joe. You don't look like any version of Elvis."
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/26/24
6:03 am ETMIKA BRZEZINSKI: So, Joe, great group this morning. And quite a weekend for Donald Trump and his supporters.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, I don't know. I, I had somebody run against me in a primary once, and they got, I think, 19%, 20%. And I, I melted down. I thought it was the end of all time. I think most politicians would.
If you're, if you're basically the incumbent and about to get the nomination for the third time, and you're still losing 50% in Iowa, and 60% [sic--Trump lost a shade under 40%] in South Carolina, which is your strongest state, I mean, Wall Street Journal editorial page this morning has a point.
If you -- before we get into the news, I know a lot of people have been talking about South Carolina, but I think the Wall Street Journal editorial page has it right here. Let me read it.
"Yet Ms. Haley won nearly 40% of the vote, which as she said in her remarks Saturday evening, is not some tiny group. That's especially true running against a quasi-incumbent who was endorsed by nearly every GOP official in the state. None of them want to risk getting primaried. Yet, as in New Hampshire, the size of her vote shows that millions in the Republican party do not want Mr. Trump in the White House.
"A Fox News voter analysis found that 59% of Ms. Haley's voters said they would not vote for Trump." Let me say it again, 59% of Haley's voters said they would note vote for Trump if he's the GOP nominee. "And the exit polls showed that 36% of all Republican South Carolina voters said a conviction in one of his criminal trials would make him unfit to be president. So even if most of those voters hold their noses and vote for Trump in a race against Mr. Biden, the question is, how many stay home, vote for a third party, or go to Biden? Even a 10% defection could be divisive, and decisive."
. . .
John, you've got a guy that's about to win the nomination for the third time, and he's losing 50% of the Republican vote in Iowa, 40% of it in South Carolina, which we've always, always said is his strongest state. And so, yeah, I mean, if I'm running for the first time and I'm getting 59%, I'm happy. If I'm a three-time, and basically a three-time incumbent, those are, those are the real warning signs. You know, you hear people warning about Donald Trump, and I certainly get it. He is a threat to American democracy. But right now, 40% of his electorate is a threat to him even getting there.
. . .JOHN HEILEMANN: Look, all those exit polls you cited should be worrying for Trump. There's also financial stuff we could talk about that should be worrying for Trump. That's more, that's not down the road. That's coming real soon.
SCARBOROUGH: Right.
HEILEMANN: This is not -- that was not an unalloyed -- look, give the man a win. He's won three. You can't take that away from him. A sin's a win. He is going to be the nominee. He's gonna be, he'll probably have the 1,215 delegates by the middle of March. But, man, if you don't see the warning signs, and Chris LaCivita and the people around him do not see the warning signs, and they are smart people. I'm sure that he and Susie Wiles -- they see it. They're pretty clear.
SCARBOROUGH: Smart people. They want him out of the race. I mean, they want her out of the race. And for good reason. And for good reason. They want her out of the race.
But Mika, I'll give you, again, a couple numbers here. And I will say, I'm, I've said this before, and, you know, I got enough problems on Morning Joe.
Like, I'm just trying to avoid flop sweat. Mika will tell you, I'm a flop sweater.
MIKA: He's a sweater.
SCARBOROUGH: I am! I'm a big guy. I sweat all the time.
MIKA: Uh! Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: So I'm just trying, I'm just trying, you know, to not look like Elvis '77.
