President Joe Biden has largely remained quiet amid the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump, and the “Morning Joe” crew thinks that’s the wrong move. On Friday, the MSNBC hosts argued that Biden needs to start calling out the charges his opponent is facing, otherwise it’s “like bringing a bottle of wine to a gun fight.”
The discussion came about in regards to a recent op-ed in the New York Times, in which writer Charles Blow argues that “Dignified Silence Doesn’t Work Against Trump.” And for the most part, the “Morning Joe” hosts and panelists strongly agreed.
“It’s not like we’re talking about personal scandal with Donald Trump and it’s too tawdry, and we’re just going to talk about the economy,” Willie Geist said. “As Charles writes, we’re talking about the foundations of our democracy.”
He continued, “That this man who led an attempted coup against the government, this man who took classified documents about military secrets back to his beach club with him, this is bedrock stuff that at some point, Joe Biden and his campaign will have to confront.”
Panelist Eugene Robinson noted that that point should’ve already come, but conceded that, under normal circumstances, “it is a problem for a sitting President to sort of weigh in and opine on an ongoing criminal case.” Still, he argued, these are not normal circumstances. And Blow immediately echoed that.
“At what point does the person who is running, literally running on a platform of defending and protecting democracy, not engage on the biggest threat to that democracy?” Blow said, adding that that idea is just “insane” to him.
Host Scarborough threw in a hearty “Amen” to Blow’s words, saying that if he were the guy running against Trump, he would be bringing up the charges at literally every campaign stop, in every conversation he had.
New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay piled on, saying that at this point, Biden’s silence is actively working against him.
“I mean, it’s like bringing a bottle of wine to a gunfight,” Gay said. “And I think there’s just an element here of, what Charles is saying is, you have to stand up to a bully! You have to stand up to a bully.”
She continued, “And Donald Trump is essentially, I believe, depending on Democrats, on the president acting like this is just business as usual. And so the silence speaks volumes, the silence becomes the elephant in the room. Well, it’s actually not accomplishing what I think the President the Democrats needed to accomplish.”
You can watch the full discussion from “Morning Joe” in the video above.