Free Republic

You didn't need to have the sound working while viewing MSNBC's Morning Joe today to know things were not going well for Hillary Clinton. The sad looks on the faces of hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough pretty much revealed the story. A sense of gloom had descended upon the set of Morning Joe (or Mourning Joe) as Mika led off detailing the latest drip, drip, dripping of Hillary scandals.Then, Joe joined added to the mournful mood by noting how the polls have been tightening in recent days. This was all in stark contrast to the upbeat mood of just a few weeks...

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. [snip] The feud continued this morning. After an extended discussion of Trump’s mental health, with Scarborough suggesting that the Donald is a “sociopath” rather than the “psychopath” that former Obama adviser David Plouffe called him, Joe went on a riff, taunting Trump as “Amnesty Don” for his softening position on immigration....

On a certain level, it was refreshing to see an MSM member admit how he sees his role: as that of a "defense attorney" for Barack Obama. On another level, it was disgusting . . . On today's Morning Joe, during a discussion of the Iran ransom deal in which even State Department spox John Kirby effectively conceded that the deal was a "quid pro quo," the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson said "I feel like I need to ask the sort of question a defense attorney would ask at this point." Robinson's point was that some had criticized the Obama...

Question for Cokie Roberts and Joe Scarborough: does the name Hillary Clinton ring a bell? On today’s Morning Joe, NPR’s Roberts and Scarborough proclaimed Donald Trump “morally tainted.” Roberts took it one step further, also declaring “morally tainted” those who support Trump. Scarborough asked Roberts whether she’d ever seen “a candidate so morally tainted, so challenged that people are calling him a racist and calling him a con man, at the same time saying we support him?” Roberts said no one has ever seen anything like this, and for good measure, citing her roots growing up in the Jim Crow...

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...

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...

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. View the video here.

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...

Scarborough said Friday on "Morning Joe" that Donald Trump has become too toxic for the GOP's congressional candidates this year. "The center cannot hold when you have the speaker of the House [Paul Ryan] calling the Republican nominee a racist but saying he's still endorsing the nominee," he said. "It is so bizarre on its face that you have people chuckling in the background." Scarborough referenced the often tense relationship Ryan has had with Trump on foreign and domestic policy issues as well as the tone of the celebrity businessman's campaign.

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...

Couldn’t Joe Scarborough have waited until after Barack Obama gave his DNC speeches tonight before he began gushing over him? Apparently not. On today’s Morning Joe, Scarborough, pre-lauding Obama’s speech-to-be, said “you know when you’re watching a great movie . . . and you can see where it’s going, and you sort of start smiling?” But it wasn’t just Obama’s as yet unspoken speech that had Scarborough excited. “You look at that lineup: it’s absolutely extraordinary,” enthused Joe. In addition to Obama, tonight’s line-up consists of Michael Bloomberg, Tim Kaine and Joe Biden. Yes, when it comes to oratory that...

Today’s opening segment of Morning Joe was one—long—gush-fest over First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech to the DNC last night. The apotheosis of adulation came from Joe Scarborough, who said that the speech “reminded me of Ronald Reagan.” Scarborough also had an “America love it or leave it” message for those who think our country needs to be made great again: “we are the last best hope for a dying world. If you can’t get behind that message as a Republican or a Democrat, then let me buy you a ticket to another country.” Wonder if Joe offered Michelle a ticket...

On Friday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough reacted to Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, saying it may have been exactly what millions of middle Americans had been waiting to hear.

Thursday on Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski made a prediction about the presidential debates forthcoming this fall: Hillary Clinton will “slaughter” Donald Trump. The liberal host said this only moments after she expressed desire for a “nice, peaceful convention” for Democrats next week in Philadelphia, contrasted with the current Republican convention in Cleveland that she believes has been consumed with “horrible, despicable things.” Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd began with a prediction of his own, that the DNC in Philadelphia is going to be “boring” and wondered what the Clinton folks are going to do “to make a little...

Joe Scarborough couldn’t have been kinder as he put the shiv into Mike Pence this morning. The opening segment of Morning Joe was devoted to the veepstakes, and Scarborough politely trashed Pence while making the case for Chris Christie. Scarborough went out of his way to praise Pence as an “able leader” and someone he likes. But he proceeded to say that Pence wasn’t “ready for prime time.” Joe broke out the deer-in-headlights metaphor and analogized Pence to previous running-mate “disasters.” On the other hand, Joe argued that Christie is someone who has been on the national stage, capable of...

“Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have not confirmed they are a couple, but they are certainly spending a lot of their free time together. On Friday, the MSNBC hosts were spotted getting a Delta flight from JFK Airport to Nantucket, Mass.

Morning Joe did a very decent job today of covering the shooting of police officers in Dallas and the issue of police shootings of African-American. The remarks were generally even-handed. Even Al Sharpton was cautious and balanced in his comments. And so it was surprising that of all people, Chuck Todd made the most tendentious remark. Speaking of the shooting of Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minnesota, and discussing the need for better police training, Todd said: “how do you train prejudice and hate out of somebody’s heart? That’s a tough thing.” Is there racism among police? Of course, as...

Mika Brzezinski makes no bones about being a liberal Democrat. She was big on Bernie, even more enthusiastic about Elizabeth Warren, whom she repeatedly urged to run for president. But while she might well vote for Hillary in the end, Brzezinski is anything but a Clinton acolyte. Her aversion was on display on today’s Morning Joe. A clip rolled of Speaker Paul Ryan saying that as a candidate Hillary should be denied classified briefings, given FBI Director Comey’s finding that she had been “extremely careless” with classified information. Panelists Harold Ford, Jr., Jim VandeHei and Michael Steele scoffed at the...

Last night, I emailed our Legal Insurrection leader Bill Jacobson to say I was counting on Joe Scarborough to have his finest moment this morning in light of the fiasco of the failure of the FBI to recommend the indictment of Hillary Clinton. This morning, Scarborough rose to the occasion. With significant support from Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe‘s opening segment was one long blast at Hillary — for doing what she did with her email and lying about it — at James Comey — for failing to indict — and at President Obama — for putting his thumb on the...

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski called on Debbie Wasserman Schultz to step down as chair of the Democratic Party because the Florida congresswoman is blatantly favoring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders. Appearing on “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Brzezinski said that Sanders treatment by the Democratic Party “has been very poorly handled from the start. It has been unfair and they haven’t taken him seriously, and it starts quite frankly with the person that we just heard speaking. It just does.” Brzezinski’s call for a change of leadership was in response to Wasserman Schultz’s criticism of Sanders from Tuesday night when she said,...