On Friday's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough railed that whoever instructed Secret Service agents not to immediately restore White House access to previously banned media outlets—after a judge issued an order temporarily lifting the ban—"should go to jail!" It was like.....Watergate!
Joe lacks all sense of proportion. Someone being denied entrance to the White House for two hours isn't a Constitutional Crisis.
Scarborough didn't stop at Trump's current clash with the media. He threatened a coming day of reckoning for the entire administration:
"There will be a time when justice will be done for people in this administration ignoring court orders. There will be a time when the masks will be taken off of ICE agents, and justice will be done for every person that they beat, for every person that they jailed, for every person that they starved, for every person that they tortured. That time is coming. So I want to know, I want somebody to take note in the White House . . . So it's time to start writing this down, and it's time to start preparing for that day when Donald Trump is not there to protect you."
"Start writing this down," says Scarborough. Sen. McCarthy had 205 names on his list of communist spies inside the federal government. Would that number work for Joe?
But the threatened reckoning, Scarborough insisted, would not be retribution. "And is this called retribution? No, no, no, because we don't do retribution in America. What this is called is following. I have a word I want to use. I'm not going to use it. Following the blanking law!" He apparently means ICE agents? Because he doesn't care about the illegal immigrants and the "blanking law."
Scarborough then played the Watergate card:
"I want to know who is saying, ignore a federal judge's order, because this sounds a lot like Watergate to me."
'This Sounds Like Watergate!' Scarborough Rages Over Press Ban Compliance pic.twitter.com/lUEJpyLeVr
— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) September 25, 2026
What's Scarborough's next demand? Trump forced to resign à la Nixon, flashing a defiant victory sign as he climbs aboard Marine One for the last time?
Scarborough ended his tirade by declaring "I love the people that lie every day for a living, literally lie every day for a living. Can still, all these years later, use the words, quote, fake news."
Joe, would that include you? This guy stared into the camera in March 2024, just three months before Biden's debate fiasco, and infamously proclaimed, "F-you if you can't handle the truth. This version of Biden intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever."
Here's the transcript.
MS NOW
Morning Joe
9/25/26
6:21 am EDT
JONATHAN LEMIRE: So yesterday, we woke up to the news that the judge had ruled that the CNN, MS NOW, and Politico should have access restored to the White House. And it took a few hours for that to happen. but then eventually, yes, they, they --
JOE SCARBOROUGH: The White House defied the court order throughout the morning. They, they, they were not allowing people to go in throughout the morning.
LEMIRE: They claim it just because the process takes a while to restore access, turn on the badges and, and the like.
SCARBOROUGH: When they're taking badges away? That, that seems to be proactive.
LEMIRE: Yeah, that's, that's more reactive.
SCARBOROUGH: Here, CNN person, give me your badge.
LEMIRE: Yeah, the Secret Service confiscated the badges of those who tried to get them restored.
SCARBOROUGH: Who gave them that order? Because whoever gave them that order should go to jail. I mean, that's contempt of court. There's an order out there. I, I really want to know what happened yesterday morning.
And, and it, this, I, I'm, I'm not saying this for an isolated reason. There will, there will be a time when justice will be done for people in this administration ignoring court orders.
There will be a time when the masks will be taken off of ICE agents, and justice will be done for every person that they beat, for every person that they jailed, for every person that they starved, for every person that they tortured.
That time is coming. So I want to know, I want somebody to take note in the White House, of the White House, who gave those Secret Service agents, who defied a court order, who gave them that order to defy a federal judge? Because when you defy a federal judge, you're in contempt. And it keeps going.
And we just see it over and over again. So it's time to start writing this down, and it's time to start preparing for that day when Donald Trump is not there to protect you.
And is this called retribution? No, no, no, because we don't do retribution in America. What this is called is following. I have a word I want to use. I'm not going to use it. Following the blanking law. That's what it's called. And they're not doing it.
LEMIRE: No, they didn't yesterday morning, and then they didn't again last night. So access was eventually restored to these outlets in the early afternoon, right around noontime. And they were on the White House campus the rest of the day. But then that evening, as part of the state dinner coverage, MS NOW and CNN were both denied access to the event where they could have seen the Chinese president arrive.
And they were then asked, they were denied.
Our colleague, Laura Barrón-López, one of our White House reporters, was not able to come in. She asked what's going on, was told to talk to Steven Cheung, who's the communications director at the White House.SCARBOROUGH: So is it Steven Cheung who needs --
LEMIRE: Perhaps so. Well, Steven Cheung did not respond to any --
SCARBOROUGH: Is it Steven Cheung who is ordering people to, I, I, I don't know. I don't even know Steven Cheung. But is Steven Cheung the guy who is ordering these people to be in contempt of a federal judge's order. Federal judge's order, by the way, that Donald Trump appointed.
I want to know. Who is saying ignore a federal judge's order, because this sounds a lot like Watergate to me.
LEMIRE: So, so Cheung never responded. We did get a, a tweet last night on the White House's, like, rapid response account claiming that this was a different sign-up, that you had to request, to have a specific request to attend this event, that your hard pass wasn't enough to get in. That's unclear if that's true. Steven Cheung is one of the people who is behind, this Twitter account. He uses it sometimes. So there, there you have it. The, the, still, they're in defiance last night. We're not in.
SCARBOROUGH: I love, I love the people that lie every day for a living, literally lie every day for a living. Can still, all these years later, use the words, quote, fake news.
