Over time, however, “Morning Joe” has become a battering ram against the Trump presidency.
Enter an exciting discussion between political ace David Axelrod and Scarborough, former member of Congress from Florida and author of the recent book, “Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization”. In his podcast “The Ax Files”, Axelrod noted that Scarborough and Brzezinski had been friends with Trump, which begged the question, “Was he a different person then or were there things you didn’t?” views? ” Scarborough responded that Trump had coughed up money for charity events. “We could still get money from him,” he said.
“We also knew that at the same time there was another side of him,” said Scarborough, who said he was not a “nice guy” or the kind of man you would want to work for. . Then this:
We made the same mistake as – and people hate it when you make that analogy; I just have to draw it. I think we made the same mistake people made during Hitler’s rise. He was sort of thought to be the clown of the New York class. We thought it was a joke, but at the same time, I think you saw what I saw: I thought he was going to whip up the establishment. I never liked the Republican establishment, as you know. I never really liked the Democratic establishment. I thought he could shake some things up. But I never really thought the guy was going to win.
On this last point, Scarborough had plenty of company, until the evening of November 8, 2016. The class of experts believed that Trump would not capture the Republican presidential nomination, let alone the White House. Once Trump won the Electoral College vote, Scarborough made forays into journalism and activism.
During the presidential transition, from Washington hands such as Robert Gates, Zbigniew Brzezinski (Mika’s father) and Michael Hayden became alarmed at reports that Rudolph W. Giuliani was in a position to become secretary of state. They asked Scarborough and Brzezinski to intervene. “Both of our goals were simple, and I know it’s probably going to piss off journalists, but we did what we did. And our two objectives were, one, to prevent Rudy Giuliani from being Secretary of State and two, to prevent Kris Kobach from being [secretary of the] Department of Homeland Security. And we hammered it over and over, we kept suggesting more establishment type numbers.
Hang in there: Isn’t Scarborough an anti-establishment guy? Be aware of yourself, Joe!
Axelrod asked Scarborough if he regretted giving Trump a platform at the start of the campaign. “I’ve been asked this question ever since I’ve been on the book tour, and I said, ‘Well what do you think of the guy who ran the Germany Today radio show in 1932? Did he regret having Hitler? I mean, obviously there was no Germany today. But of course, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t want to do it, “said Scarborough, who noted that the show invited all presidential candidates, though Trump was the one who” didn’t. kept showing up at the door. . “
The host’s biggest regret was focusing so much on Hillary Clinton’s emails. “You take that and compare that to what we’ve been through for the last four years, and it really makes me scratch my head and say, ‘Okay, wait a sec: why have we focused on this so much. that we did? ? ”
The problem with the Scarborough defense is linked to Trump’s long history of outrages. “If I knew then what I know now” doesn’t really work for a candidate who opened his presidential campaign by calling out Mexican rapists. In his conversation with Axelrod, Scarborough even mentions Trump’s promotion of the “birther’s” lie about President Barack Obama. “We kept telling him if he was going to run, he had to give it up, and he was always kind of like, ‘Well, you know, I didn’t really do that, and it’s not me, it’s the others. ‘ And we were like, ‘No, Donald, it’s you.’ “
Racism mixed with lies: these have been Trump’s hallmarks from the start, and yes: there was a lot of clear evidence by the time “Morning Joe” began to treat Trump so kindly. Birtherism is all that anyone needs to understand Trump.
In June 2017, Trump launched a vile Twitter attack on Scarborough and Brzezinski. “The guy who’s in the White House now isn’t the guy we knew two years ago,” Scarborough remarked on air, referring to the yuk-it-up days on “Morning Joe.” “The guy in the White House isn’t even close.”
Actually, no: the guy in the White House has been very stable. In other words, stable in his penchant for destroying everything and everyone who does not feed his ego. From his own experiences with Trump, Scarborough knows all about it.
Blog Erik Wemple sent Scarborough an email stating that we would write about his remarks and challenge the idea that Trump’s threat was unclear when he launched his first campaign. Scarborough’s response:
While I’m not sure how you plan to write the article, your summary sounds like a generalization that glosses over a few points. I’m talking about a hypothetical Germany Today radio host from 1932, I said I couldn’t imagine he would be a fascist president. As you know, few even thought he would be elected president in 2015.
I also criticized his Birtherism and talked about how Mika and I criticized him and told him he had to stop lying about it and telling him that Obama was not a Christian.
I think I also brought up the fact that I compared his Muslim register to a Nazi program from the 1930s in early December 2015.
I could go on, but I suspect this will be another piece that takes low blows and uses misleading generalizations about what I said – kinda like Trump deploys. This is the irony of these columns. They use many of the same Trump tactics to criticize the early treatment of Trump by our show.
I hope I am wrong. History suggests I am not.