Joe Scarborough and Bernie Sanders: same struggle!
The Morning Joe host sounds ever more like the socialist guy ranting, in his inimitable Brooklyn accent, about "millionaires and billionaires."
On today's show, Scarborough went off on Trump's claim that, thanks to him, people have gotten richer. Scarborough pointedly distinguished between billionaires and "working" Americans.
Scarborough caricatures the rich as modern-day versions of Mr. Monopoly, running off with a bag of cash under the arm. The reality is that many, perhaps most, billionaires got there through very hard work, long hours, and ingenuity. Yes, there are some heirs and coupon clippers, but that's not the reality of the rich in America.
The segment opened with a clip of President Trump claiming, with a soupçon of his trademark hyperbole, that “you’re twice as wealthy as you were a short time ago, every one of you, and that’s because of me.”
Scarborough attributed that to: "the one big, beautiful billionaire bill. Awesome for billionaires, awesome for millionaires, pretty horrible for working Americans." Scarborough said he did not want to talk about billionaires, an odd claim from a man who could not stop saying the word. He would talk instead—no fewer than six times—about “working" people.
Notice who Scarborough excludes from "working" Americans: people like the founder who still shows up. The surgeon with a brutal call schedule. My friend "Pogo" back in Ithaca, who started by emptying septic tanks at $25 a pop, and after years of grinding work, became a successful underground utility contractor.
In Scarborough’s America, they are not working Americans. They are the cartoon.
It is Bernie Sanders without the accent — the same kvetch about “millionaires and billionaires,” the same habit of treating wealth as proof you stopped being a person who works.
In Scarborough’s America, the Rich Don’t Work pic.twitter.com/FdyotMlPPR
— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) September 29, 2026
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on the road with the same sermon on her current "Students vs. Billionaires" tour, which made a recent stop in Ithaca, pitching to students at my Cornell alma mater and Ithaca College. AOC told them a “moneyed elite” had “declared a class war against working-class Americans"--classic Marxist rhetoric.
The irony: many of the people cheering that framing will shortly be sending their résumés to firms those ee-vil billionaires founded, scaled, or still run. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the AI companies, the banks that fund the endowments, the hospitals and labs that sit on gifts from people the room is trained to hiss.
Scarborough can gripe about gas and groceries all morning. What he will not do is admit that a lot of the people he has kicked out of “working Americans” got there by working like maniacs. The top hat is easier. The bag of cash photographs better.
On Morning Joe, the rich are not allowed to have shown up for work.
Here's the transcript.
MS NOW
Morning Joe
9/29/26
6:00 am EDT
DONALD TRUMP: On all the exchanges, 82 [days of record highs], in a little more than a-year-and-a-half, right? And people don't hear that. And as soon as that war ends, inflation's going to be eradicated totally. But nobody talks about that. And nobody talks about the fact that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Nobody talks about all of the incredible things. You're twice as wealthy as you were a short time ago, every one of you, and that's because of me.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Hmm. All right, President Trump, yesterday, pointing out all the things that he talks about that apparently no one else does. Good morning, and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, September 29th.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Wait, I'm confused.
BRZEZINSKI: What? What are you confused about?
SCARBOROUGH: Is the economy better than it's ever been?
BRZEZINSKI: It's 30 seconds into the show, and you're already confused.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I'm, I, well, no, you, I'm always confused.
BRZEZINSKI: That's true.
SCARBOROUGH: I'm just particularly confused about that.
BRZEZINSKI: Okay, so what, let's go through it. Let me help you.
. . .
WILLIE GEIST: The fact that he said everyone is twice as wealthy as they were, thanks to me, the people on the patio at Mar-a-Lago are twice as wealthy than they were.
BRZEZINSKI: Twice as wealthy, if not more.
GEIST: Regular Americans can't afford to fill up their cars with gas or buy groceries, so that's outrageously out of touch.
SCARBOROUGH: The rich, Jonathan Lemire, have gotten richer. There's just no doubt about, and they've gotten richer because the Republicans, specifically, focused on their one big bill. Beautiful for billionaires, the one big, beautiful billionaire bill. Awesome for billionaires, awesome for millionaires, pretty horrible for working Americans.
So we could talk about the billionaires. But why should we sit and talk about how great things are for billionaires when he does it all the time? Why should we sit and talk about how great things are going for, for CEOs and for multinational corporations when he does that all the time? He can talk about how that's going great.
You know what we'll do? We'll just talk about the working man and woman. We'll talk about working Americans.
BRZEZINSKI: How about, most Americans?
SCARBOROUGH: Working Americans not doing well. Middle class Americans not doing well. Groceries up, gas up, diesel way up, hospital costs way up, thanks to Republicans' big, beautiful billionaires bill. Way up. Rent, way up. Mortgages, way up, bonds. And you're having a bit of a catastrophe right now, spiking to a level we haven't seen since 2007. Mortgage rate, way up.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Know what's down, Joe?
SCARBOROUGH: What's that?
LEMIRE: Economic growth.
SCARBOROUGH: Economic growth down. Look at those numbers. Again, why don't we talk about how great things are going for billionaires? Because that's what he does. That's what Bessent does. That's what the Trump administration, and they're focused on that. They've been focused, and that's what all Republicans care about. They don't care about working Americans. If they did, they wouldn't have passed the bill they passed, which gutted healthcare for working Americans and gave tax cuts to billionaires and multinational corporations and millionaires.
