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Joe Scarborough Tag

Every couple of weeks, Joe Scarborough rebuilds lost conservative street cred by going on a good rant against liberals and the MSM. He did so in spades on today's Morning Joe, comprehensively crushing libs for their hypocrisy in "freaking out" over Trump's wait-and-see answer at last night's debate to the question of whether he'd accept the results of the election. Excerpts: "the media got something they can absolutely freak out about and claim that he is an agent of Vladimir Putin and destroying democracy in America and it's just another example of the media having to find a little phrase and freak out when as a Republican I have listened to Democrats talk about the only two times we won the White House in like 800 years that we stole both elections . . . hell, even Bernie Sanders supporters just six months ago were saying that Hillary Clinton was rigging the election."

During the opening 6AM segment of today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough accused NBC of having "cooked" its current poll to favor Hillary Clinton. But at 8AM when Morning Joe replayed that opening segment, Scarborough's criticism of the NBC poll . . . had disappeared. Instead, the video jumped ahead to Mika Brzezinski's reading of the poll results themselves, which showed Hillary Clinton with an 11-14% lead. Scarborough's point was that NBC sampled only during the height of the hot mic hysteria, but didn't include sampling from after the debate, widely viewed as having been won by Trump. Joe obviously knew he was skating on thin network ice, prefacing his criticism by saying "we work here. We really love working here. We love this place."

Let's say it simply: Joe Scarborough has become a shameless pro-Hillary shill. On the big issues of the day: Hillary's health collapse and her "basket of deplorables," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook himself could not have spun things for Clinton more audaciously than did Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. On Hillary's collapse, Scarborough played the happens-to-everyone card, saying that he often has to grab the handrail walking down the stairs and feels faint during every performance with his rock group. As for Hillary heaving half of Trump supporters in a "basket of deplorables," Scarborough first tried to prove Hillary right with some poll numbers, then dismissed the issue as "much ado about nothing."

The opening segment of today's Morning Joe was a Niagara of negativity deluging Donald Trump, focused on his comments at the Commander-in-Chief Forum. No discussion of Hillary Clinton's newest lies about her email, and the fact that, in order to create a veil of secrecy for her Foundation malfeasance, she subverted our national security. Two examples of the extreme hostility toward Trump, coupled with a dose of Hillary-worship. Ad man Donny Deutsch detected "envy" of Putin by Trump, saying "I think he wants to be a dictator." A bit later, Mika Brzezinski sympathized with poor Hillary: she's so "incredibly prepared" to be president that she has to "dumb herself down to deal with this idiot on the other side."

A few days ago, we reported on "Dr." Joe Scarborough declaring that Hillary Clinton "doesn't have" any health issues. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough took off his neurologist's hat and put on the campaign consultant's cap. Scarborough's advice to Hillary: refuse to answer any more questions about her emails. According to Joe, Clinton should put her answer up on her website, refer journalists to it any time they try to probe her on the matter, and "move on" to a discussion of Syria. Mike Barnicle echoed Scarborough's "move on" advice, suggesting Hillary say that if people are still concerned about her email, they should just vote for "Bozo the Clown." To his credit, Mark Halperin dissented from Scarborough's advice, saying that there are "many new questions" that have been raised about Hillary's email that she still needs to answer.

UPDATE: Looks like Scarborough was parroting a Clinton campaign talking point. John Podesta, chair of the Hillary for America PAC, had put out a press release entitled "Trump Choked," and repeating that c-word a couple of times in the release. Maybe Morning Joe can cut out the middleman, dispense with hosts, and just run a looping feed of Clinton campaign press releases. Like Bulgarian and Ukrainian Olympic judges back in Soviet Union days who gave American ice skaters a crummy score after a strong performance, on today's Morning Joe Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough totally trashed Donald Trump on his visit with the Mexican president. For not raising the issue of who would pay for the wall, Scarborough screamed "he choked! I can't stand people that choke under pressure!" Brzezinski was reluctant to discuss the trip at all, dismissing Trump as a "fringe, alt-right Republican candidate . . . let's not pretend this is some sort of foreign policy discussion."

What was your reaction upon waking to the news of Trump's planned trip to visit the President of Mexico? This Insurrectionist saw it as a bold move that might help him appeal to various voting groups. Morning Joe has been on an anti-Trump riff of late, but even so one anticipated that at least someone on the panel would applaud Trump's gambit. Wrong. Across the board, the Morning Joe gang ripped and ridiculed Trump's trip. Joe Scarborough set the tone, mockingly pointing out that Trump and the Mexican president will be "very excited" since their combined approval ratings will reach 50%. Mika Brzezinski, after emotionally declaring "I'm absolutely done with being emotional about this" said "it's almost silly to spend too much time analyzing his moves because they're nonsensical." Mike Barnicle couldn't see "what difference this trip makes." Willie Geist said Trump might be walking into a "trap" in which the Mexican president will seize the occasion to tear Trump down in front of the Mexican people. Donny Deutsch outdid the others, psychoanalyzing Trump: "megalomania, sociopath, detached from reality." Thank you, Dr. Donny.

One week ago, a Twitter war erupted between Donald Trump and the hosts of Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. Whereas the pair had been among the first in the media to take Trump's chances seriously, in recent times they had become very critical of the Republican candidate. On August 22nd, Trump tweeted that Mika was a "neurotic and not very bright mess!" He also threatened to some day tell the "real story" of Joe and Mika, whom he described as Scarborough's "long-time girlfriend." Scarborough responded with tweets telling Trump to "look in the mirror" if looking for someone who's "neurotic and not very bright." Scarborough added that the show was enjoying its best ratings ever "thanks to obsessed fans like you!"

This would be funny if it weren't so ironically hypocritical. There was reporter Jeremy Peters, of the New York Times—appearing on MSNBC—piously condemning "Sean Hannity's incredibly inappropriate role as an adviser to Donald Trump who is essentially giving him tens of millions of dollars of free advertising." Just what does Peters think the MSM is: from his own New York Times to MSNBC, CNN, CBS, ABC, the Washington Post, etc., if not one huge monolith devoted to electing Hillary Clinton and other Dems while destroying Donald Trump? If Hannity is giving Trump "tens of millions" in free advertising, what is the combined value of free advertising that the MSM is giving to Hillary Clinton? Peters spoke after a clip ran of Hannity's show in which Trump asked people at a rally to show their support for different policy options on immigration.

Take this with a good grain of salt, since Donny Deutsch is a Hillary-supporting Dem, but Donny does run in the same New York circles as Donald Trump, and has called him a friend. Guest co-hosting on With All Due Respect today, Deutsch said "I can actually see Trump bailing. I can't see us ever getting to the point where election night, Trump becomes George McGovern. He is not going to allow—it's just not in his system . . . I cannot see him the rest of his life with a big 'L' on his face." Mark Halperin called the notion of Trump dropping out of the race a "Manhattan fantasy."

Some inside baseball from the Trump campaign . . . Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have known Donald Trump for years, and reportedly are in regular contact with members of his campaign staff.  On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough said that what: "every Donald Trump staffer will tell you is: he never, ever takes any of the blame himself. He always screams at staffers. That's what is starting to happen now that the polls are going low." Meanwhile, Mika Brzezinski reported that Trump is exhausted, sleeping in "two-hour spurts," and that as a result Trump is "losing it." Do Joe and Mika have any sources inside Hillary's campaign? Think Clinton might occasionally raise her voice? And if she isn't sleep-deprived, what's accounting for her physical and verbal stumbles? Short-circuit, anyone?

The opening segment of today's Morning Joe was one long fusillade against Donald Trump in light of his remark yesterday that there is nothing people could do to stop a President Hillary from abolishing the Second Amendment, "although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know." The single harshest criticism came from Joe Scarborough, who suggested that Trump had "crossed the Rubicon" into fascism. Scarborough said that in the past he had rejected use of the words "fascist" or "fascism" in reference to Trump because he had never made "a call to violence." Scarborough asserted that Trump's comments yesterday were a suggestion that "Second Amendment people" kill Hillary Clinton or judges. Concluded Scarborough: "he crossed a lot of Rubicons yesterday."

Was New York Times columnist Frank Bruni suggesting there could be civil unrest if Donald Trump loses big and bitterly? That seemed a likely implication of his comments on today's Morning Joe. Bruni said his "fear" is: "what if he goes down big and goes down bitterly? I really worry about the aftermath. I worry about November 9th and forward in terms of what's been stirred up." Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tried to soothe poor Frank's fears: "We survived Bush-Gore 2000, we made it through that just fine and I think we'll make it through post-Trump just fine, too."

On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough said that "I had multiple sources last night telling me that an independent with the backing of a lot of Republican money is going to launch today." None of the other panelists, including the well-connected Mark Halperin, had heard that. Scarborough continued: "several good sources told me that people, Republicans from, let's just say #NeverTrump land found somebody and they're going to put good money behind him." Scarborough said it would be someone "French-like," i.e., like National Review author David French whose name was floated not long ago before withdrawing.

We reported yesterday on Joe Scarborough's statement that Republicans, conservatives and so-called right-wing bloggers had been contacting him to ask about Donald Trump's "mental health." Scarborough himself called Trump "unhinged." Joe took things a significant step farther on today's Morning Joe, saying that Republicans have been contacting him, asking themselves "is Donald Trump a sociopath?" Scarborough was careful to state "I didn't say this, but this is what everybody is saying." Scarborough dropped the s-word in the context of hammering Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W., over his lesser-of-two-evils support of Trump.

On Morning Joe, in the wake of recent comments by Donald Trump including his criticism of the Gold Star Khan family, Joe Scarborough says that he has been contacted by Republicans, conservatives and what the media would call "right-wing bloggers" to inquire about Trump's "mental health." Scarborough says "everybody" is talking about it. Scarborough went on to say "I've known him for a decade, never seen him act like this before. It's unhinged, not the Donald Trump I've known for over a decade. I never have seen anything remotely resembling this type of behavior from a guy who I've known and liked and called a friend."

As we reported yesterday, in her Fox News Sunday appearance, Hillary Clinton blamed "professionals" on whom she was "entitled to rely" who “made the wrong call” by sending her classified material. Appearing today on Morning Joe, Hillary Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook continued to blame others, whining that the emails containing classified materials came from "long-time tenured State Department professionals." But as Scarborough and others on the panel pointed out, Hillary forced others into sending her classified information in an improper way because she only maintained email on her private server.

Of all the metaphors he might have picked to praise Hillary Clinton, Joe Scarborough chose the most unfortunate one: that of "brain surgeon." Because to many people, Hillary brings to mind none other than Nurse Ratched, that cold and domineering figure who subjected one of her charges who wouldn't fall in line to . . . a lobotomy. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough actually said "why don't we try actually hiring a brain surgeon who's been operating on brains instead of chopping down trees for the past 30 years?" Scarborough put the words in the mouths of Hillary supporters he imagined, but was clearly expressing his own sentiment.