Joe Scarborough, MSNBC's favorite Republican, on Tuesday continued his habit of slamming conservatives. He knocked former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's One Nation bus tour as "a big, old, fat weekend of nothing, politically.”
The former vice presidential candidate spent this Memorial Day weekend in Washington D.C., where she visited important historical sites, including backdrops that many political candidates have used before.
Scarborough dismissed her tour, mocking, "...So she goes and does a big, old, fat weekend of nothing, politically, which she's entitled to do, which is great - I mean it sounds like fun, go to Gettysburg."
A transcript of the May 31 segment, which aired at 8:13am EDT, follows:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: All right, you can let the bus roll forward now. Sarah Palin stopped by in Gettysburg as part of her east coast One Nation bus tour.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: So is she run- did she say she was running? What did she say this weekend?
BRZEZINSKI: Well, it was an impromptu three minute Q and A session with the media.
SCARBOROUGH: So she said she's running for president, or what's this about?
BRZEZINSKI: Palin said if she runs for president-
SCARBOROUGH: If she runs.
BRZEZINSKI: - she will break from some of the usual approaches taken by White House hopefuls.
SCARBOROUGH: Okay.
BRZEZINSKI: Palin also-
WILLIE GEIST: That is so easy-
BRZEZINSKI: She also made headlines on Sunday-
SCARBOROUGH: yeah.
BRZEZINSKI: - riding into Washington on the back of a Harley. Interesting, um-
SCARBOROUGH: Okay.
BRZEZINSKI: Well, anyhow-
SCARBOROUGH: You did that this weekend as well.
BRZEZINSKI: I did, actually, I rode a Harley, that's just funny. During the-
SCARBOROUGH: In Lancaster County, not in Washington.
BRZEZINSKI: Yes, yes, Ron Castle's Harley. It was one of many stops for Palin and her family who spent the weekend touring iconic sites. Like the National Archive and Mount Vernon.
SCARBOROUGH: Mika, why are we doing this?
BREZINSKI: I don't know, I'm tired.
SCARBOROUGH: Just take the video down-
BRZEZINSKI: It's making me tired, I'm having trouble reading it.
SCARBOROUGH: If she decides she wants to run, we'll talk about it, but what is that - so now let's- let's do our media, uh, uh uh.
BREZINSKI: No matter what we say.
SCARBOROUGH: Willie Geist, so she goes and does a big old fat weekend of nothing, politically, which she's entitled to do, which is great - I mean it sounds like fun, go to Gettysburg, I'm not knocking Sarah Palin, but the press just swarms around her, and it's just ‘well Donald Trump's gone, who do we go to now?'
GEIST: I get the sense for her this was like a heat check. ‘Do I still have the ability to make the media and the country follow me and see where I'm going?' I'm going to got on what amounts to a site-seeing tour with my family. I'm going to go to the Archives, I'm going to go to Mount Vernon, see some of the sites of DC. Will they follow?' And boy did they ever. She was chased everywhere she went with cameras and microphones in her face. She did, granted, do it in a giant bus with her face and name painted on the side, which would indicate some sort of a campaign message.
JON MEACHAM: A branding opportunity.
GEIST: Or perhaps it was just a branding opportunity.
RICHARD HAAS: Is that how your family travels?
SCARBOROUGH: So, so there were still a lot of people following her, huh?
GEIST: Yeah, she had a lot of press following her all weekend.
SCARBOROUGH: So her gambit paid off, I guesss.
GEIST: She said ‘ this is not about me, this is about getting people out to see the great sites of this country.'
SCARBOROUGH: Oh yes.
--Eric Ames is an intern with the Media Research Center.
