In the first ten minutes of Thursday’s Morning Joe, co-hosts and lovers Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski mocked the President’s early-morning tweetstorm criticizing the Russia probe, referred to Fox News hosts as “pro-Russian dupes,” and accused anyone who wants to end the Mueller investigation of “doing the bidding of an ex-KGB spy.” In addition, panelist Mike Barnicle described President Trump’s base as “deranged.”
The show began with another tired warning by Scarborough about a “constitutional crisis” because Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end the Russia probe. The MSNBC Republican could not resist making a well-worn dictator comparison, describing the President’s actions as “exactly what Erdogan did in Turkey back, you know, 2013, 2014.” Scarborough also warned the audience that “you fire prosecutors and you have a banana republic.”
Scarborough and Brzezinski played amateur psychiatrists as they scoffed at a series of tweets President Trump sent out on Wednesday morning. Scarborough jeered: “Look at poor, poor...poor Donald. He really needs to sleep.” Brzezinski chimed in, telling Trump: “Lay your head on a pillow.”
Scarborough then suggested: “I think a little more rest would make him a little less frantic in the morning when he wakes up.” Later, he took a shot at Fox News hosts and Republicans who wish to end the Mueller probe, describing them as “dupes” who were “doing Vladimir Putin’s biddings. They’re trying to cover up for Vladimir Putin by ending the trial.”
Barnicle complained about “the venom that he has begun to feed on an almost daily basis out into the public,” specifically referring to Tuesday's Trump rally that heckled CNN's Jm Acosta. “We keep referring to his base. Well, I’m sorry, but the people we saw the other night at that rally, if that’s his base, it’s deranged.”
Scarborough brushed aside the Trump base as “shrinking,” but Brzezinski jumped in, claiming that they're “also dangerous.” Scarborough continued on:
I will say this, after that rally, I started calling a lot of my friends and Republican friends not only in northwest Florida but across the country and I started asking. Okay, guys, I got 80 percent in Republican primaries by talking about free trade, low taxes, being anti-Russia, being strong for NATO, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What’s changed? Are you guys buying into this and to a person, they all said no. This is…we’re just sitting here holding our breath. I know the polls say that 90 percent of Republicans supporting, maybe that’s what a lot of them tell pollsters but Mika, there is a deep, deep unrest among lifelong Republicans. They also say this. The Chamber of Commerce Republicans no longer exist. They’re wiped out. And as we’ve said here time and again, politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. That hard core dwindling base, that spells real trouble for Republicans this fall and real trouble for Donald Trump in 2020.
All told, the panel repeatedly predicted doom and gloom for the Trump administration. As demonstrated by this tweet by President Trump referring to Morning Joe as a “dead show,” it looks like the love-hate relationship between these lovebirds and the President of the United States will continue for the foreseeable future; with no cease-fire in sight.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Morning Joe is below. Click “expand” to read more.
MSNBC's Morning Joe
08/02/18
06:00 AM
ZEKE MILLER: Does that tweet this morning mark a change in posture by the President?
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: It’s not an order. It’s the President’s opinion.
REPORTER: Are President Trump’s tweets considered official White House statements?
SEAN SPICER: Well, the President is the President of the United States. So, they’re considered official statements by the President of the United States.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Wow. Good morning. And welcome to “Morning Joe.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I’m confused. So confused.
BRZEZINSKI: You know what? What is that line from “The Office?” Universe, you win.
SCARBOROUGH: Universe, you win.
BRZEZINSKI: It’s Thursday, August 2nd. And what a way to start the day.
SCARBOROUGH: What a way. So wait, is it the official policy of the President or not? I think the most telling thing of the whole story is how much his lawyers freaked out immediately and started calling around immediately. He was just venting. Just like a baseball game. When he’s actually doing what…talking about what would start a constitutional crisis and…
BRZEZINSKI: Or obstruction of justice.
SCARBOROUGH: As Brian Clause pointed out yesterday is exactly what Erdogan did in Turkey back, you know, 2013, 2014. You talk about fake news. You talk about deep state conspiracies. You fire prosecutors and you have a banana republic.
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah. We’re getting close. With us we have MSNBC Contributor Mike Barnicle, White House Reporter for the Associated Press Jonathan Lemire, former FBI special agent and MSNBC Contributor Clint Watts and NBC News National Political Reporter Heidi Przybyla. And I say we are getting close and that may sound like an overstatement, but I will tell you we are understating what we are seeing every day. And ask someone like Madeleine Albright whether what she sees here is the beginning of a very bad scene for this country that does not look like a democracy if it keeps going.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, a bad scene for a country, Willie, if you don’t have people pushing back. But we talked about the commander that pushed back a couple of days ago told the truth about warnings and we actually saw John Cornyn and some Republicans step out yesterday, Susan Collins saying, wait, no, he can’t do that. So, there was pushback and there will be push back. But, you know, we’re talking about the White House and Donald Trump specifically provoking fights and violence towards reporters a couple of days ago and then the White House comes out and says, oh, he’s never talked about violence. Well, you can look at all of the quotes in the campaign where he’s saying beat them up and whatever. But then speaking of fake news, you have Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushing a lie, the fake news about some report on Osama Bin Laden and how the press actually stopped American military men and women from catching…
BRZEZINSKI: Wow.
SCARBOROUGH: I mean, she might as well have said Neil Armstrong never walked on the moon. It’s just pure conspiracy, pizzagate Nonsense.
WILLIE GEIST: A widely debunked theory that goes back to his rally two nights ago. Those QAnon, Clint, we talked about this the other, yesterday; those signs that were up everywhere. There’s conspiracy theories all over the place. Not only they’re not squashing them, they’re promoting them from the lectern.
BRZEZINSKI: From the podium.
GEIST: The briefing room. But yesterday the President was as explicit as he’s ever been calling on the Attorney General of the United States to stop the Mueller investigation. That is your headline. He said that and no amount of spin from Rudy Guliani or Jay Sekulow calling The New York Times and everybody else they could find on their speed dial to say, oh, he’s just blowing off steam, expressing his opinion can change that; he called for an end to the investigation.
BRZEZINSKI: And he’s up all night freaking out about it all.
SCARBOROUGH: He is up all night freaking out about it. Right? Tweets in the middle of the night. And, Mike, he knows, he knows Mueller has the goods. He knows that Mueller is getting closer. He knows that they have information about, if you believe Rudy Giuliani, a pre-meeting. He knows it is all coming down on him. He’s hearing talk about Don Jr. and real legal jeopardy. But I think…
BRZEZINSKI: Oh, boy.
SCARBOROUGH: The most telling thing that is going on. And look at poor, poor..
BRZEZINSKI: Just go to sleep.
SCARBOROUGH: …Poor Donald. He really needs to sleep.
BRZEZINSKI: Lay your head on a pillow.
SCARBOROUGH: I think a little more rest would make him less frantic in the morning when he wakes up. But I think the most telling thing right now is the fact that there are even a handful of Republicans and some, some pro-Russian dupes on another cable network who are now not doing the bidding of Donald Trump in trying to end the Mueller investigation, but are now doing the bidding of an ex-KGB spy because Mueller has uncovered and it’s in black and white. Mueller has uncovered the fact that Putin tried to infiltrate the United States democracy and undermine it. The United States military, the United States Intel services, they’ve got the goods on Putin. And so, now, any American that is patriotic would say, okay, we need to find out more about this. How did he try to undermine and destroy our democracy? Instead there are actually some dupes, I’d call them back benchers, but some run Freedom Caucus and then you have got the Majority Whip who were doing Vladimir Putin’s biddings. They’re trying to cover up for Vladimir Putin by ending the trial. I don’t think that’s big in... I don't think that’s, covering up for ex-KGB agents that are murderers, I don't think that’s big in Louisiana or in North Carolina.
MIKE BARNICLE: Yeah. Steve Scalise’s behavior, I mean, what he did the other morning was beyond the pale. But at the core of this is the President of the United States clearly fearful because he knows what he did. And he knows that Bob Mueller and the investigation that they are conducting is on to what he did. And that’s the result of the tweets. But there’s something else here that is truly dangerous. And that is the venom that he has begun to feed on an almost daily basis out into the public. We saw it at the rally the other night. And it’s no longer fun, none of it is funny. It’s truly dangerous.
BRZEZINSKI: Yes.
BARNICLE: We keep referring to his base. Well, I’m sorry, but the people we saw the other evening at that rally, if that’s his base, it’s deranged.
SCARBOROUGH: It’s a shrinking, it is a shrinking…
BRZEZINSKI: It’s also dangerous.
SCARBOROUGH: I will say this, after that rally, I started calling a lot of my friends and Republican friends not only in northwest Florida but across the country and I started asking. Okay, guys, I got 80 percent in Republican primaries by talking about free trade, low taxes, being anti-Russia, being strong for NATO, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What’s changed? Are you guys buying into this and to a person, they all said no. This is…we’re just sitting here holding our breath. I know the polls say that 90 percent of Republicans supporting, maybe that’s what a lot of them tell pollsters but Mika, there is a deep, deep unrest among lifelong Republicans. They also say this. The Chamber of Commerce Republicans no longer exist. They’re wiped out. And as we’ve said here time and again, politics is a game of addition, not subtraction. That hard core dwindling base, that spells real trouble for Republicans this fall and real trouble for Donald Trump in 2020.
