“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brazezinski and the Monday morning panel called out Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy for not only defending Donald Trump as an likely indictment nears, but for downplaying the former president’s enthusiastic call for protests, emphasizing that “he’s not talking in a harmful way.”
Brzezinski slammed McCarthy’s defense, saying it “defies logic given that Donald Trump is using similar language that led up to the January 6 insurrection that led to death and destruction and an attempt to subvert our democracy.”
“I guess if he can completely ignore that part of Trump’s legacy, he might then have an opinion that perhaps he’s not actually trying to incite any type of violence,” Brzezinksi added.
Pushing back on Trump’s call for protests Sunday, McCarthy told reporters in Orlando that “I don’t think we should protest this, no.”
“And I think President Trump, if you talk to him, he doesn’t believe that either,” the speaker said. “I think the thing that you may misinterpret when President Trump talks, when someone says that they can protest, he was probably referring to my tweet: Educate people about what’s going on,” McCarthy said. “He’s not talking in a harmful way, and nobody should. Nobody should harm one another in this. And this is why you should really make law equal because if that was the case, nothing would happen here.”
Jackie Alemany, who has been following the Republican response to Trump’s comments over the weekend, summed up Trump’s rhetoric as “deja vu” for Republicans in regard to the Jan. 6 insurrection of 2021.
“They were headed into this GOP retreat in Orlando, hoping to focus on bigger picture policy items, like the budget that’s due in coming weeks and making sure that the U.S. government doesn’t reach the debt limit,” Alemany said. “And of course, the timing of this deeply complicates their agenda. Especially as Kevin McCarthy got out in front of this and said now he was going to direct congressional committees – specifically the weaponization committee – to investigate if federal funds have been used to conduct this investigation.”
Watch the full “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.
