Joe Scarborough Scrambles To Justify His Defense Of Biden’s Mental Acuity In Clash Over Scathing Op-Ed: ‘I Did Not See it!’

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough scrambled to justify his past defense of President Joe Biden’s mental acuity during the 2024 presidential campaign and confessed that in encounters with the president, he “did not see” any sign of decline that would have prevented him from running in a feisty MSNBC showdown on Wednesday.

The confession came as the hosts discussed a new column by Financial Times US national editor and MSNBC contributor Ed Luce that argued Biden’s final farewell was a “tragic” end to his career and that he’d chiefly be remembered as a bridge between Trump administrations. Luce described Biden as a “flawed hero” from a Greek tragedy whose “virtue and hubris” in initially refusing to hand the Democratic campaign to someone else had brought about his own downfall.

Invited to explain his article by Scarborough, Luce criticized the Democratic establishment for “shielding” Biden from “unscripted encounters with the public and the media” while also lambasting the media for having “ostracized” journalists who raised the alarm on Biden’s faculties, like David Ignatius and Ezra Klein.

In an immediate response, bordering on rebuttal, Scarborough challenged Luce’s view that questions over Biden’s mental capability were fair, running flank on his own record by talking at length about his own experiences with the president and conversations had with those around him.

Let me press you on a few things here. You said that David Ignatius said something that everybody in Washington knew. I must say, there are many of us who know Joe Biden fairly well. I’m sitting next to one of them [co-host and wife Mika Brzezinski]. I’m sure Mike Barnicle will have a question for you as well. Mike Barnicle, his chief complaints early on, quietly, to me and others, was that they were not letting Joe Biden out enough.

Mike talks to President Biden in the house regularly throughout the year. I spent, as I’ve said before, two and a half to three hours with Joe Biden in the White House, all over the White House, talking at length and in depth about foreign policy matters. And he was as sharp as anybody else I’ve spoken to and spoke actually like a man who’s been doing this since he was 29 years old and new world leaders.

Was he slower physically? Yes. Did he occasionally jumble a few words or a few names? Yes. But he corrected those as well. So after two and a half to three hours of it with him in the White House, going all over the White House, I did not see that.

Scarborough added that he had spoken with world leaders from Europe and the Middle East who relayed that Biden was “sharp.”

I don’t know that it’s quite so easy that everybody in Washington, D.C, that the man was ill equipped to be president of the United States. I know that’s what they say on social media, but that certainly wasn’t my experience. I would guess Mike Barnicle will tell you the same thing as well as Mika but I mean, foreign leaders and foreign governments told me very different things to what you’ve just said.

Luce responded, pointing to Biden’s disastrous presidential debate performance against President-elect Donald Trump, then-Republican candidate, adding that it raised questions within the White House and proved that “the American public had it right.”

Scarborough interrupted to push back: “Wait, wait, I’ve got to interrupt you again and again. And you and I are very good friends. I’ve got to stop you right there.” He repeated that he’d spoken with people close to Biden who had reassured him of the president’s ability.

In counter, Luce then cited conversations he’d had with White House officials to defend his point. He argued that officials relayed to him concerns about Biden’s “declining energy, his declining memory, his increasingly short daily schedule to accommodate his declining memory and energy.”

“I’m not putting this out of thin air,” he added.

After a brief advertisement break, the debate rolled on into a further segment as Scarborough continued:

Editor, as Mika said, you know, two things can be true at once. I’m never in a million years would suggest you’re making anything up. I’m saying, in retrospect, things certainly look clearer on the other side of it. For people that are talking to you, when I mean, I guess the question is, why didn’t why didn’t they talk six months ago? Why didn’t they talk a year ago? If that’s how they are, if that’s what they saw, why didn’t they say? Because if I had seen it, I would have said it.

Scarborough went on to criticize the Washington Post article by Ignatius, published September 12, as flawed because it quoted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Luce didn’t accept the host’s take, instead praising Ignatius for setting out “the right argument.”

Luce said: “Certainly the conversations I had with people in our profession, but also people working in and around the white house that were very similar conclusions being drawn. And that and that was, you know, 15 months before the election, there was time then for Biden to cede the field and have a full open primary for the Democratic Party.”

Watch above via MSNBC.