Scarborough: Trump’s Message to White Nationalists? Synagogue Massacre ‘Doesn’t Bug’ Him That Much
President Donald Trump’s behavior in the immediate reaction to the deadly shooting at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue that left 11 people dead drew the ire of Morning Joe’s panel, who were deeply critical of the Commander in Cheif’s comments in light of this horrible hate crime.
On the day that 11 worshipers lost their lives at the hands of an unhinged anti-Semite who appeared to be reacting to false reports that George Soros’ had underwritten the “caravan” of migrants that has been in the news of late, Trump chose not to cancel a political rally, and instead did some things that critics saw as uniquely unpresidential.
Morning Joe’s producers opted to open their show this morning with a montage of past and current presidents making comforting statements. Viewers saw clips of Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama each rising to the challenge of delivering words of comfort and unification in light of a recent disaster.
This montage ended with a clip of Donald Trump then talking about his “bad hair day” at a political rally just hours after the Pittsburgh hate massacre occurred.
It was another example in a long line of Rorschach test media moments. Devotees of Morning Joe will see that as it was intended, a demonstration of Trump’s inability to unify in a time of need.
Critics of media, and those who support Trump’s claim that the media sow more division than the President’s rhetoric will see that clip as a cheap shot, ignoring the specific words he said choosing instead to feature a meaningless throwaway line.
They are both right, and that’s how we are where we are.
But host Joe Scarborough went one further. Calling this a “national reckoning,” he made plain that he sees this as a moment where a nation needs to decide if this is the sort of country they want to live in with the midterm elections just eight days away.
“For two and a half, three years you have had a president and a candidate running for president who after Charlottesville preached moral relativism and equated neo-Nazis with those that were protesting against neo-Nazis,” Scarborough noted.
He continued “you have had somebody who has been calling Hispanic’s breeders, somebody who has been calling himself a nationalist and neo-Nazis have come out praising him for that, praising him for other actions. He has refused steadfastly to attack white nationalists.”
He finished by claiming that Trump’s joke about his hair, or tweeting about a baseball game “was sending a message” and “that was done intentionally to send a message to white nationalists: ‘this doesn’t bug me that much.'”
Watch the clip above, courtesy of MSNBC.
