MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough unloaded on Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz Thursday after playing clips of their questioning of Attorney General Merrick Garland from Wednesday.
“They are defending people who made death threats against school board members,” the “Morning Joe” host fumed.
Garland testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about a memo he said was a response to violent threats against school board members from parents around the country. The Republicans on the committee accused Garland of attacking parents and weaponizing the government’s resources against them.
Hawley called on Garland to resign, while Cruz demanded to know if a Nazi salute — as one parent reportedly performed at a school board meeting — was protected under the First Amendment. Garland said it was.
“I’m not sure if that’s the example I would have used, were I am one of two people who worked to overthrow a democratically elected election on January 6th,” Scarborough quipped after rolling the clip of Cruz. “Josh Hawley, of all people telling, ‘I call on you to resign?’ Well, the two major newspapers [in Missouri] called on Josh Hawley to resign after he, of course, was at the middle of the insurrection on January 6th, so it’s very rich.”
He also pointed out that while Cruz, Hawley and other Republicans are acting like “populists,” they’re still Ivy League-educated elites. That, Scarborough said, is also “rich.”