Joe Scarborough Rages GOP’s ‘Enfeebled’ Congress Giving Trump ‘Free Rein’ — and White House Demolition Is Proof
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough unloaded on the Republican-run Congress for giving President Donald Trump a “free rein” and asked when GOP lawmakers are going to get the “spine” to stand up to the administration.
The takedown came as MSNBC’s Morning Joe crew reflected how a senior administration official revealed to The New York Times on Wednesday that the White House East Wing would be demolished in its “entirety” to make way for Trump’s new ballroom construction project, after the president’s promise not to “interfere with the current building.”
Scarborough unloaded on the project as symptomatic of Congress’s abdication of the responsibility in holding the administration to account, pointing to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s fiery Senate testimony in early October as proof of the White House’s “contempt” for Capitol Hill.
“For these members of the administration to treat Congress with such contempt, or to just completely tear apart the White House without consulting with Congress. Not that these Republicans have shown much of a spine anyway,” he said. “But still, I really do think there are people who are in the – and let me say this slowly so they understand – the second branch of government who now think they’re the only branch of government, because they got elected by, what, 49.9% of the vote?”
Co-host Willie Geist agreed: “So you asked, is there no oversight even of tearing down large portions of the White House? There’s supposed to be. There’s an entire organization that looks at federal construction projects that has said a 90,000-square-foot ballroom would completely overwhelm the 55,000-square-foot White House that sits next to it. There’s always oversight in place. The question is, does the administration have any respect for it? Does it recognize Congress and other organizations’ job to oversee what the executive branch is doing?”
Scarborough jumped in: “And is Congress going to actually have the nerve, the backbone, the spine to actually do their jobs on every one of these fronts?”
He continued: “In past times, if any attorney general treated members of the Senate with such contempt, or if people went up to the Hill and treated those conducting oversight on the administration – the first branch giving oversight to the second branch, which the first branch defines, because that’s what the United States Constitution says – you would have Republicans and Democrats together saying: ‘Wait, I think you got this backwards. You may want to go back and read the Constitution.’”
“Doesn’t matter what some dork in a Washington think tank is telling you,” the host added. “The Constitution gives the first branch the power to define and the power of oversight. And right now, the second branch is doing whatever it wants, because too many in the first branch are giving them free rein.”
Rounding on a warning, he said: “The impact, again, is that Republicans will pay for this in the future. Unfortunately, it’s independents, it’s Democrats – it’s all of us – who will pay for the precedents this weak and enfeebled Congress is setting right now.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
