Throughout the early days of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump‘s apparent relationship with MSNBC’s Morning Joe political talk show, many have wondered whether co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough’s connections to the candidate were a little too close. After all, not too long after several repeat appearances during and after the Iowa Caucus, comments by Scarborough in which he bragged about he and Brzezinski’s candid meetings with Trump went viral. Considering their Monday morning rant against the leading Republican’s most recent, racially tinged tirade, however, it’s safe to assume that any coziness otherwise assumed between the program and Trump has been razed to the ground.
As Politico notes, Morning Joe‘s increasing hostility for Trump might have something to do with the latter’s most recent tweeted insult levied at the show. On Friday morning, Trump wrote that he doesn’t “watch or do” the MSNBC program due to its “small audience” and “low ratings!” His social-media-driven jabs at Scarborough and Brzezinski are nothing new, so the latest tweet may have been a catalyst, but a much stronger reason for Morning Joe‘s ire is Trump’s unwavering public slander of Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the federal judge overseeing the Trump University fraud case. Trump has repeatedly indicated that, per Curiel’s “Mexican heritage,” the ruling against him in favor of the Trump University plaintiffs is “biased” due to the judge’s alleged dismay over the candidate’s plans to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.
Over the weekend, Trump sat down with CNN’s Jake Tapper for an interview in which the former’s comments about Curiel were brought up. Instead of using the interview to recant his past statements or try to clarify them, Trump stuck to his guns. And as the montage of clips played by Brzezinski and Scarborough on Monday illustrate, Trump didn’t falter from his opinions of Curiel in subsequent interviews with Fox News and CBS. “He’s not treating me fairly,” he whined at Face the Nation host John Dickerson, who asked analogously whether Trump’s insistence on Curiel’s ethnicity would preclude a Muslim judge from giving Trump a fair ruling in court. His response? Yes, or in Trump’s own words, “I’m talking about common sense.”
That was all the prompting Morning Joe needed to begin the segment. Brzezinski started by polling guests Al Sharpton and Nicolle Wallace, asking whether Trump’s words about Curiel and the hypothetical Muslim judge were racist. Both agreed, but neither really had a chance to get any words in as Scarborough couldn’t contain himself any longer. The former Florida representative turned television personality launched into a monologue against Trump:
“They can’t be morally outraged this week when they knew what he was doing last week. And by the way, I said it here on the TV box. And you can check it out on the TV box. I said, all the way back in December, I would never endorse Donald Trump so long as he supported banning 1.4 million people for entering the last best hope for a dying world, the United States of America, simply because of the god they worship. Simply because they were Muslim.”
If that wasn’t enough, he also name-dropped Speaker Paul Ryan and other elected Republican officials who’ve endorsed (or said they’d vote for) Trump’s nomination:
“So these Republicans, this week, who were so shocked and stunned and deeply saddened and offended by this clear act of racism had all the evidence in the world before that he had done things that again stopped them from endorsing him… Now he endorses Donald Trump. He endorses his racism against Muslims, Paul Ryan endorses his racism against Mexicans. Paul Ryan endorses his racism against Americans who may have, oh, I don’t know, 1/16th Mexican blood in there, saying they’re disqualified to be judges.”
For those of you who enjoy watching seven straight minutes of screaming political banter, check out the entirety of Scarborough’s thoughts on Trump (and more) in the video below.
(Via Politico)