Scarborough Slams Hugh Hewitt for ‘Whataboutism’ on Heated Rhetoric: ‘Shameful’

Joe Scarborough called out MSNBC contributor Hugh Hewitt for comments he made on MTP Daily about heated rhetoric and the bomb threats to high-profile Democrats.

During an exchange on President Donald Trump‘s comments this afternoon to reporters about the bomb threats, former Obama 2012 deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said Trump “never takes the higher road” and does the right thing in these situations.

“Hugh, I appreciate your trying to throw everybody into the same bucket, but that’s an impossible thing to do,” she said. “This president has incited violence. He has––you know, people at his rallies, he talks about punching people in the face… This is how he won the presidency, the politics of fear. There is no equivalent in the Democratic party.”

“There is an equivalent,” Hewitt countered. “There’s the man screaming at Mitch McConnell in the restaurant, there is Maxine Waters encouraging people…”

Cutter jumped in to say the two aren’t comparable. They went back and forth and Hewitt said, “Incendiary behavior by any public official ought to be held to the same standard.”

He brought up the ricin scare when Susan Collins was sent a suspicious envelope and said, “It’s everywhere.”

After that exchange, Scarborough tweeted this out calling his comments “shameful”:

Hey Hugh Hewitt, your whataboutism is shameful.
You are comparing people yelling in restaurants to someone sending bombs to presidents and secretary of states?

Everyone uses Trump’s rhetoric? What is wrong with you?

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) October 26, 2018

UPDATE –– 6:19 pm ET: Hewitt has since responded:

Distracted tonight @JoeNBC? I denounced Sanders-inspired shooter, McConnelll assault, the @senatorcollins ricin threat. The opening and closing points: that angry obsessives are on both fringes. Only one had wounded people thus far thank God. The tone is a shared responsibility. https://t.co/A3luTl5iMs

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) October 26, 2018

You can watch Hewitt’s comments above, via MSNBC.

[image via screengrab]