Joe Scarborough Thoroughly Blasts J.D. Vance for ‘Lying Through His Teeth’ and ‘Trashing the FBI’ During Trump Rally

Joe Scarborough criticized Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance for groveling to Donald Trump and running with the former president’s false claims while they rallied together over the weekend.

Morning Joe spoke with The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes on Monday as Scarborough outlined the ongoing saga from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s lies on tape. Scarborough offered Sykes a lament for the state of the Republican Party, saying “this has become a party that’s adopted Putin and Russia’s sort of firehood of falsehoods, and is employing it every day.”

We saw J.D. Vance last night going out, lying through his teeth, just complete lie. Once again, trashing our FBI, lying about the FBI, saying that they had illegally wiretapped Donald Trump’s offices. It just continues every day. You want Trump’s support? You have to trash the military. You have to trash the FBI. You gotta to trash the CIA. You gotta to trash every American institution the people like you and I hold dear.

Scarborough was referring to the rally Trump held in Ohio, where he defended his endorsement of Vance and brushed off the Hillbilly Elegy author’s past criticisms of him. Vance also spoke at the rally, and he claimed the FBI wiretapped Trump during his presidency.

“The FBI illegally spied on Donald Trump. Why hasn’t a single one of them gone to prison?” Vance claimed. “Who would have believed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, our FBI, would have gotten an illegal wiretap on a U.S. president? Who would have believed?”

It is possible Vance was attacking the FBI for admitting mistakes were made in how they took steps to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. It is also possible Vance was talking about Obamagate, the dubious claim that the Obama administration authorized inappropriate politically-driven surveillance into Trump and his inner circle.

Sykes declined to parse Vance’s claims, for he kept his focus on McCarthy as he said the Republican leader’s “groveling and lying” represents how the GOP has submitted to Trump’s will.

Donald Trump keeps raising the ante, and I think he likes this. He likes this as an instrument of humiliation. How far can I push people? What can I get you to say? What can I get you to apologize for? So it is not surprising that we wake up on Monday morning and find that Donald Trump is completely happy to have the next Speaker of the House of Representatives — possibly — on his knees, apologizing to him and acknowledging that he has no political future except by believing and repeating Donald Trump’s lies.

Watch above, via MSNBC.