If you’re a Hillary Clinton fan Thursday’s Morning Joe could help you get your fix of the presidential candidate. Joe Scarborough brought on Joe Klein to talk about his new pro-Hillary piece in Time magazine. Klein’s kind words about Hillary allowed Scarborough to reminisce about his days in congress and what he thought about the then First Lady. “I looked at the First Lady under siege and she stood up there and she was clapping and smiling and I thought to myself, damn, that may be one of the strongest people I've ever seen in my life.”
No matter what scandals or political battles she found herself in, Scarborough admired how she came out clean and kept moving forward. “I've never seen anybody in national politics that endures as much as Hillary Clinton.” Scarborough said gushingly. It could be because the media have done their best to shield her and her family.
Later on in the segment Scarborough when on to opine about how Hillary is one of the few candidates who’s ran a campaign on substance and knowledge of the issues. “What's so ironic is that the two candidates that have been around the longest, are the most versed on both sides, know issue by issue, could go toe to toe with anybody longer are Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side and Jeb Bush on the Republican side” [Video below]
Scarborough then turned his sights to a pair of GOP candidates he is known to have disdain for. “You look at the two people whose campaigns are the most maddening to those who actually support substance, at least on the Republican side, and it's Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.” This line of attack, in particular against Marco Rubio, was a common theme during the program.
During the program Scarborough accused Rubio of being an empty suit with no accomplishments during his time in the Senate. The host played dumb when pressuring, Rubio surrogate, Rick Santorum about the accomplishments of the Senator, a story MSNBC ran with the rest of the day. The Rubio campaign soon after put out a bullet point list of his achievements.
Transcript below:
MSNBC
Morning Joe
February 4, 2016
7:32:25 – 7:33:33JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah Joe Klein, I love the title of this, of Time magazine talking about Hillary Clinton keeps getting knocked down and of course she keeps getting up. I mean, we can talk about all the things that have happened over the past ten years or so but I remember that famous state of the union right after the Monica Lewinsky story broke. I was in the back of the chamber –
JOE KLEIN: 1998.
SCARBOROUGH: '98 where I usually stood so when the president started speaking I could go back and lie down on the couch in the cloak room. But in this case I turned up and I looked at the First Lady under siege and she stood up there and she was clapping and smiling and I thought to myself, damn, that may be one of the strongest people I've ever seen in my life.
Because by that point she'd already been put through the meat grinder on health care and on about a thousand -- Whitewater, about a thousand other things and she just kept coming and I've got say, I've never seen anybody in national politics that endures as much as Hillary Clinton.
...
7:35:35 – 7:37:44
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And Cokie Roberts, what's so ironic is that the two candidates that have been around the longest, are the most versed on both sides, know issue by issue, could go toe to toe with anybody longer are Hillary Clinton –
COKIE ROBERTS: Jeb. Jeb Bush
SCARBOROUGH: --on the Democratic side and Jeb Bush on the Republican side. And yet both of them fail the singular test I have for every candidate that wants to run.
ROBERTS: Why do you want to run?
SCARBOROUGH: If you can't put it on a bumper sticker you can't win. What is the overarching thing and neither one of them can do it.
ROBERTS: And also talking about their records is talking about the past and elections are about the future and that's a real problem for them. And you know, in Hillary Clinton's case, I get it. You know, she's worked really hard. And when she came to the senate, it was so interesting because everybody in the senate thought oh, she's going to be here and be a show horse and then she was a workhorse.
SCARBOROUGH: Just the opposite.
ROBERTS: Just the opposite. And worked across the aisle and all of that. But that doesn't sell.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That's typical of women. We work harder blah blah blah. That's yesterday's story. When you know, when you ask about a message and even last night when she was asked about the speech money and big banks and she kind of begrudgingly said she's going to hold Wall Street accountable almost like looking down, because it's not necessarily -- she's not right there with it. She's not. She's not.
SCARBOROUGH: But it goes against Hillary Clinton's nature like it goes against Jeb Bush's nature to be glib and tight like Ted Cruz.
ROBERTS: Because they want to be people who are of substance.
SCARBOROUGH: You look at the two people whose campaigns are the most maddening to those who actually support substance, at least on the Republican side, and it's Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Because it looks like they've practiced every line, everything is calculated, they repeat the same thing over and over again. You talk to any political professional and they will tell you those guys are disciplined and that's how you win elections.
ROBERTS: Ronald Reagan.
SCARBOROUGH: Don’t you ever put Ronald Reagan in a Ted Cruz Marco Rubio sentence ever Cokie! Or it’s over! [Laughter]
