Joe Scarborough Walks Back Defense of NBC’s Tony Dungy Attending March For Life After Seeing His Tweets
Joe Scarborough quickly walked back his defense of NBC’s Tony Dungy attending the March For Life after learning of the analyst’s controversial tweets.
On Friday, Dungy was a guest speaker at the March For Life rally in Washington, D.C. Dungy spoke about the power of prayer and miracles in his speech.
While he faced some blowback for the speech, he also came under fire for a tweet — since deleted — with anti-LGBTQ statements. Responding to a post by the Daily Wire that discussed a Minnesota House member advocating to put menstrual products in boys’ bathrooms at schools, Dungy wrote: “That’s nothing. Some school districts are putting litter boxes in the school bathrooms for the students who identify as cats. Very important to address every student’s needs.”
Dungy apologized for the tweet on Saturday. The idea that litter boxes are being placed in schools is an urban myth that has been spread on the right.
On Monday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough defended Dungy against critics of his attendance of the massive March For Life rally.
“Tony Dungy, great former coach, and great analyst, he decided to go to the pro-life march in Washington. There were columns written about him, comparing everybody at the pro-life march to Q-Anon, to The Truthers, to January 6th types,” Scarborough added.
“Tony Dungy has talked about his beliefs, he’s talked about his faith, and he’s pro-life,” Scarborough continued. “40 percent of Americans, according to the latest Gallup Poll, are pro-life. Do we push him to that side of the conversation? Or do we figure out a way to let a guy have his own beliefs, that 40 percent of Americans have as well, and still be on TV without catching a lot of crap because he decides he wants to go to a pro-life march?”
After the segment shifted to the former Director of Policy Planning, Doctor Richard N. Haass, discussing foreign affairs with MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire, Scarborough reappeared next to co-host Mika Brzezinski and walked back his defense of Dungy.
“A couple of follow-ups, first of all, you said we have to admit when we make mistakes; well, let’s just say when I talked about Tony Dungy, it was incomplete,” Scarborough said. “I had read tweets about how he had been attacked for going to the pro-life march, but also, Alex just sent me this: ‘Tony Dungy apologizes after spreading debunked anti-transgender conspiracy theories.'”
“So, there’s two sides to that story,” Scarborough added. “Or actually, multiple stories this weekend about Tony Dungy, so let me put that out there.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
