Joe Scarborough Apologizes for Criticizing Vietnamese Refugee’s NY Times Column Comparing Fall of Afghanistan to Saigon

Joe Scarborough walked back comments he made criticizing an article written by a Vietnamese immigrant who examined the comparisons between the fall of Afghanistan to the fall of Saigon.

Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and University of Southern California professor, penned a guest essay for New York Times’ Sunday Review describing his family’s escape from Vietnam in 1975 when he was a very young child. After describing the horrors his family witnessed as they fled, Nguyen turned his attention to those who say Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban echos Saigon’s capitulation to the North Vietnamese.

From the essay:

The Taliban are not the People’s Army of Vietnam, and the American evacuation of Saigon, chaotic as it was, was better planned than the American endgame for Kabul. But the Saigon analogy is important because the urgency and the human disaster are similar as is the role that the United States and other nations must play to shape those fates of Afghans. It was therefore disappointing to hear President Biden on Monday defend his Afghanistan policy by focusing on two alternatives — stay and fight or withdraw — while laying the blame primarily at the feet of the Afghan government and army. Blaming Afghans obscures a history of American miscalculation starting with President George W. Bush, and allows Mr. Biden to treat the evacuation of Afghan allies as an afterthought rather than a priority.

It isn’t clear whether Scarborough noticed this part of Nyugen’s essay, which highlighted the chaotic evacuations from Kabul and America’s responsibility to the citizens of Afghanistan. Nonetheless, Scarborough responded to the article with “Please don’t embarrass yourself by comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam or the events of the past week to Saigon in 1975. Dear Lord.”

Please don’t embarrass yourself by comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam or the events of the past week to Saigon in 1975. Dear Lord. pic.twitter.com/MvSQojhzwF

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 22, 2021

This drew a rebuke from Nguyen, who accused the Morning Joe host of failing to read the article and/or register the point Nyugen was trying to make.

“I’m not embarrassed @JoeNBC, because what I say is that the situations are different, except for the moral urgency in helping civilians and refugees,” Nyugen said. “Either you misread or didn’t read in your haste to score a point.”

I’m not embarrassed @JoeNBC, because what I say is that the situations are different, except for the moral urgency in helping civilians and refugees. Either you misread or didn’t read in your haste to score a point. https://t.co/SdVvt7dZGs

— Viet Thanh Nguyen (@viet_t_nguyen) August 22, 2021

You can be a Vietnamese American or refugee, published in the New York Times, and people still won’t read what you wrote.

Arundhati Roy put it best @JoeNBC: “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” https://t.co/YPYgzQRiBM

— Viet Thanh Nguyen (@viet_t_nguyen) August 22, 2021

Scarborough eventually apologized to Nyugen, claiming he was taking issue with how the Times presented the essay on the front page of the Sunday Review.

“I’ve been bothered this week by those who have tried to draw a neat analogy between the hell the Vietnamese people suffered for decades and the tragedy the Afghans are enduring now. You never did that, and I never thought you did,” Scarborough tweeted. “I’ve spent most of my life inspired by the lives of Vietnamese refugees and grateful for what they’ve contributed to America. I am hopeful that we will allow our allies from Afghanistan to do the same here in the coming years.”

My apologies. My words were not directed toward you or your moving, persuasive article. It was directed at the NYTimes editors who chose to stamp the words “Our Saigon” on the single image dominating the front of the Sunday Review. Your piece on page 4 is a must read. https://t.co/vNu0inIkQJ

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 23, 2021

I’ve spent most of my life inspired by the lives of Vietnamese refugees and grateful for what they’ve contributed to America. I am hopeful that we will allow our allies from Afghanistan to do the same here in the coming years. @viet_t_nguyen

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 23, 2021

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet Newsletter
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!