MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough gave “Morning Joe” viewers a homework assignment Friday: They had to determine if President Trump’s boasts that the military went through Minneapolis protesters “like a knife cutting butter” was more aligned with the ideas of fascist leaders, or other American presidents.
“If you can’t find examples of fascist leaders talking about violence of protesters that way, please, your homework assignment for the weekend — if you so choose to take it — is to find an American president who’s ever talked like this,” he said before rolling a clip of Trump making the statement.
He and his panelists condemned the comments as “un-American,” but pointed out Trump is “isolated” in making them, as GOP lawmakers have not mirrored his language.
The topic came up multiple times throughout the three-hour morning show, with Scarborough saying at one point that he is careful when using analogies from the past to describe Trump’s behavior, so he “won’t say that’s fascist.”
“I will leave that to our viewers to go back in history and see what fascist leaders have said about if anybody said anything similar to, ‘it was a beautiful thing, like knife cutting through butter,’” he said.
Gen. Mark Milley, the country’s top military official, spoke out Thursday, saying he should not have participated in another recent event where the military used tear gas to disperse protesters so Trump could walk through the street and pose at a church with a Bible.
Watch the clip above.