Joe Scarborough ridiculed Fox Business host Stuart Varney on Tuesday’s “Morning Joe” over Varney’s insistence that President Trump “exaggerates and spins,” but doesn’t lie.
“This is like a comical version of ‘1984,’ if they decided to do ‘1984: The Comedy,’” said Scarborough. “Talk about doublespeak …”
Scarborough was reacting to a Friday interview between Varney and Joe Walsh, the former Tea Party congressman now challenging Trump’s re-election bid in the Republican primary. When Walsh, the interviewee, asked Varney, the interviewer, if he believed Trump has ever lied, Varney said “no.”
“He exaggerates and spins,” Varney added.
Walsh gave an example of a Trump lie, pointing out White House aides have contradicted Trump’s claims of high-level talks with the Chinese, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry also did.
“Even his staff, Stuart, admitted he lied this week when he said there were high-level phone calls between the United States and China,” he said. “His staff came out yesterday and admitted that the President of the United States lied to the world to manipulate the market.”
Varney contested that, saying it “was not a lie” and imploring Walsh not to “get technical” before asking for another example of a Trump lie.
“That guy just threw himself away like that?” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski asked Tuesday morning after reviewing the clip on-air.
Donny Deutsch, an MSNBC host and guest on the show, said: “I’m not a psychologist. You just wonder, a guy like that, have they somehow talked themselves into it or is it the performance art?”
A Fox Business representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.