Joe Scarborough Implores Republicans to Put Party Ahead of ‘Unhinged’ and ‘Immoral’ Donald Trump

 

Joe Scarborough opened Wednesday’s Morning Joe with a seven-minute essay that began by outlining evidence of a “rejected” and “unhinged President Donald Trump” and ended with his beseeching of Republican officials to put country and party ahead of support for Trump.

Scarborough is no stranger to over-the-top and hyperbolic criticism of the Commander in Chief, but this was different, more sober and serious version of what Morning Joe viewers see day in day out, as it followed a busy news day that raised bipartisan eyebrows. Namely, Trump announced that he was ostensibly siding with the Saudi government over their political assassination of  Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, over the findings of his own CIA, which he rationalized with an odd non-sequitur of “America First!”

Scarborough opened:  “Unfortunately, we’re learning by the hour that a repudiated, a rejected Donald Trump is more unhinged than the Donald Trump we watched the first two years and yesterday brought us a compendium of the bleakest elements of Donald Trump’s immorality, openly siding with the Saudis.” He then added, “even as their leader was declared a cold-blooded murderer by the U.S. Intel community, Saudi thugs, they brought a bone saw you to ambush an American resident in a Washington Post columnist.”

The Morning Joe host then turned to a damning New York Times report that revealed that Trump “repeatedly and petulantly demanding the tools of the Justice Department would be used to go after his perceived political enemies, Hillary Clinton and James Comey, likely defending his daughter’s personal use of e-mails for government business with dozens of unanswered questions that still suggest that her conduct could have been every bit as egregious as Hillary Clinton’s.”

Scarborough wrapped by citing the “blue wave” of Democratic victories in the midterm elections earlier this month and imploring the members of his former Republican party to do something.

“In the wake of the midterm super shellacking, the entire Republican Party is still standing in full support of its dear leader. Don’t show me your tweets. Don’t give me your speeches. Show me your courage. Show me that you want to put your country, your party ahead of Donald Trump. But time is running out.”

“For the sake of history and for the fake of the conservative and one of the nation’s two political parties. Good men and good women who want a future for the GOP need to stand up and speak out today. Or therefore their face will be fully intertwined with this man who is crashing and Bunning right before their eyes. You think 2018 was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Scarborough’s criticisms of President Trump are by no means unique. But this seven-minute essay felt more urgent than his typical asides that lead to Mediaite headlines.

Put another way, if the boy kept crying wolf because he kept seeing a wolf attacking his herd, would the villagers keep responding? Or would they be happy with conservative Supreme Court justices and fat tax cuts, while the sheep get slaughtered?

Watch the clip above, courtesy of MSNBC.

 

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Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.