Joe Scarborough Dismisses Reporters Looking Into How the ‘Press Screwed Up’ on Russia: They’re Either ‘Useful Idiots’ Or ‘On Russia’s Payroll’

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough lamented reporters who investigate where reporting about Russian involvement in the 2016 election went wrong, calling them “useful idiots.”

“I’m amused by so-called reporters who — I don’t know if they’re useful idiots for Russia, or if they’re on Russia’s payroll … but there are are some gifted writers who spend all night and day, trying to dig through, looking for instances where the press screwed up on Russia stories,” Scarborough said in a Monday segment of Morning Joe.

Scarborough’s network famously dedicated generous amount of airtime to investigating aspects of Russian interference that were debunked or never corroborated — including a so-called “pee tape” described by the Steele Dossier.

However, Scarborough insisted, the reporting was predominantly accurate. “If you look at the totality of it, the totality of everything — I mean, yeah, the media screwed up at some points, and sometimes they screwed up badly,” he said. “But more often than not, they got it right.”

Watch above via MSNBC.