It wasn't enough for Mika Brzezinski to declare that Ronna McDaniel would never darken Morning Joe's doorway.
On today's episode, Mika, on behalf of the show, called on NBC to fire McDaniel. Or as Mika couched it, "we hope NBC will reconsider its decision," to have hired former RNC chair McDaniel as a political commentator.
MIKA: To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier. And we hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.
Morning Joe hasn't attempted to have any actual conservative "balance" in years. Noah Rothman attempted to walk that "balance" line, but where did he go? Hilariously, Scarborough seemed to claim he was a conservative again. Nobody who's watched this show in the "Biden is obsessed with Joe" phase should buy that, but there he was:
SCARBOROUGH: It's not about not wanting conservatives on the air. I'm conservative. And, check my record, I'm probably more conservative, I'm a lot more conservative than so many people that criticize me from the Trump right. And, but I was in politics. I'm here. Jon, you help the president from time to time with speeches. You're here. We've had other people on that are involved. Jen Psaki is. Of course, Nicolle Wallace is, worked for George W. Bush.
MIKA: They bring value to the table and expertise.
SCARBOROUGH: And they bring value to the table. So, yeah. Again, we encourage people to be partisan and fight for what they believe in.
Let's review the other people who "bring value to the table." Value....for the leftist MSNBC base.
- Jon Meacham. Who serves as an occasional Biden speechwriter.
- Jen Psaki. A former Biden press secretary.
- And Nicolle Wallace! Scarborough had the chutzpah to describe her as having worked for George W. Bush -- as if that established her conservative bona fides. Scarborough knows full well that if Wallace was ever a conservative -- a dubious proposition -- she has turned into a flaming liberal and perhaps MSNBC's most ardent Trump antagonist!
Meacham responded to all this talk of election denial by again proclaiming "I think there is a moral duty, if the choice is between Donald Trump and President Biden, to vote for President Biden, despite any policy disagreements you might have."
These brave anti-Ronna dissidents at NBC and MSNBC have a very broad definition of "election denier" -- you can't say Biden won, but the election wasn't fair. You can't complain about Big Tech squashing the Hunter Biden laptop story, and you can't complain about ZuckerBucks flowing into liberal areas for turnout, or loosening all the voter eligibility rules for the pandemic.
If Joe wanted actual conservatives on the show -- the kind who would criticize Democrat policies in general, and Biden in particular, without being MAGA members, they abound. CNN, for example, managed to find and hire Scott Jennings, an actual non-Trumpian conservative. He's rare, but he's there.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
3/25/24
6:13 am EDTMIKA BRZEZINSKI: Let's talk about the hiring of former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, she was on Sunday's Meet the Press. It was her first appearance since NBC News hired her as a political analyst. I know you won't be surprised to know that we've been inundated ith calls this weekend, as have most people connected with this network, about NBC's decision to hire her.
We learned about the hiring when we read about it in the press on Friday. We weren't asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons, including but not limited to, as lawyers might say, Ms. McDaniel's role in Donald Trump's fake elector scheme, and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone.
MIKA: To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier. And we hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on Morning Joe in her capacity as a paid contributor.
. . .
SCARBOROUGH: She really summed up the sickness in the Republican party. When asked by Kristen Welker, why did you go along with the whitewashing of political violence? Why didn't you speak out against those who tried to overturn American democracy, those who beat the hell out of cops, those who rioted at the United States Capitol at the instruction of Donald Trump, the guidance of Donald Trump, the inspiration of Donald Trump? Why not? She said, sometimes you have to take one for the team.
. . .
JON MEACHAM: Taking one for the team is the problem. Because the team is not as important as the rule of law, the Constitution.
. . .
SCARBOROUGH: The team, I guess it's how we define the team. For me, the team is a pyramid. It's God, country, Constitution, for me, conservatism. For others, it's being progressive. It's liberalism. That's how it goes. Politicians and parties, for me, have always been at the bottom of -- of that list.
And for some reason, it's been inverted. So instead of God, country, Constitution, conservatism, and then politicians and party, it's been inverted. And now, it is Donald Trump.
MIKA: Personality.
SCARBOROUGH: It's Donald Trump. And everything flows from that. So when -- I guess I shouldn't -- when I hear that, again, very clarifying, I guess I should -- I guess I shouldn't be staying up trying to figure out what happened to them. This is what happened to them. They completely -- their value system flipped, and Donald Trump's on top. And everything that's done goes through that filter. And everything is justified. Everything he does is justified. Political violence is justified. His lifestyle is justified. His hatred is justified. His racism is justified. All the things my friends would have spoken out about when I was growing up. When Bill Clinton was president, when they were so shocked, stunned, and deeply saddened by Bill Clinton. Now, the pyramid is flipped.
. . .
MEACHAM: I believe -- and I never thought I would say this -- I think there is a moral duty, if the choice is between Donald Trump and President Biden, to vote for President Biden, despite any policy disagreements you might have. Because whatever else you want to say about President Biden, he believes in the Constitution.
. . .
SCARBOROUGH: It's not about not wanting conservatives on the air. I'm conservative. And, check my record, I'm probably more conservative, I'm a lot more conservative than so many people that criticize me from the Trump right. And, but I was in politics. I'm here. Jon, you help the president from time to time with speeches. You're here. We've had other people on that are involved. Jen Psaki is. Of course, Nicolle Wallace is, worked for George W. Bush.
MIKA: They bring value to the table and expertise.
SCARBOROUGH: And they bring value to the table. So, yeah. Again, we encourage people to be partisan and fight for what they believe in.
