“Morning Joe” is making no apologies for airing Trump’s most recent anti-immigrant rhetoric on Monday’s show, or on any other day’s show. According to the hosts, they’re very much doing it on purpose, in an effort to call out the behavior rather than “normalize” it.
During Monday’s episode, the MSNBC show played footage of Trump at a recent rally, during which he said that immigrants from all over are “poisoning the blood” of the United States. The comment drew huge criticisms, even from President Biden’s campaign, which likened Trump to Hitler for his words.
As soon as the clip ended, host Mika Brzezinski put a pause on reactions, and explained exactly why they showed it.
“Why do we show this? We always get that question, ‘Why do you give him attention?’ Actually, this cannot be normalized,” Brzezinski explained. “And he is the Republican frontrunner. He is, so far, the Republicans’ choice.”
Joe Scarborough agreed, and dug in even further on why, especially now, Trump’s rhetoric needs to be seen.
“It’s getting more explicit. It’s getting worse,” Scarborough said. “I’m still shocked by the clowns who claim to be media critics out there. Just absolute clowns that attack the media for reporting this.”
Scarborough then ran down a laundry list of Trump’s past words, in which he’s praised and quoted multiple dictators, and spread misinformation and lies. For Scarborough, it’s all very “straightforward,” and something to be taken seriously.
“We are in a fight for American democracy, and he’s becoming more and more explicit on how he wants to take American democracy down,” Scarborough said.
You can watch the full segment from “Morning Joe” in the video above.
