The “Morning Joe” crew could barely keep it together Friday as they discussed Donald Trump’s “big announcement” that he is selling $99 digital trading cards bearing poorly photoshopped images of his likeness.
“How do we show this and keep a straight face?” Mika Brzezinski wondered as her co-anchor Joe Scarborough said, “There are few words.”
Friday’s segment opened with a montage of famous speeches in presidential history from FDR, JFK and George Bush before cutting to Trump hawking his NFTs on Truth Social.
Scarborough shared his reaction to the “sleazy” announcement while their co-anchors looked on, audibly laughing and wiping tears from their eyes.
“I saw this yesterday and you know, I thought it was put together by a late-night comic or something,” he said. “But we may be going into the early days of Rudy [Giuliani]-ism where you sit there and go, ‘Where are the children to keep him away from cameras so he doesn’t embarrass himself?’”
He continued, “I mean, this is so out of touch, right? … So outdated, so off-key, couldn’t believe he did it. It was so horrifically bad especially at this point when people are saying, ‘Is he relevant?’”
Co-anchor Willie Geist noted that the announcement was “so bad” that even longtime Trump allies like Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn were embarrassed.
“For a guy who says he’s a billionaire, he’s out hustling his supporters for 99 bucks for a Zoom with him,” he added.
When Brzezinski tried to get everyone to reset, Scarborough playfully protested.
“Joe. We have to show our viewers what we’re talking about,” she insisted, before rolling the Trump clip.
Asked for his opinion, co-anchor Michael Steele said: “Joe, I love you brother, I’ve got nothing for you. This is some of the whacked-out, stupidest stuff I have seen, ever.”
“Here’s the interesting part about this,” he continued. “We get a chuckle from it, but there a whole lot of people who are going to buy this stuff. There are a whole lot of people who are going to plop down $99 on something that doesn’t exist. It’s an NFT!”
Whether or not “this is a way for Trump to get back in the game” stirred up some debate among his co-anchors, but as Steele acknowledged, “We’re talking about it, we’re showing it.”
“It’s not presidential, but what about 2016 was presidential?” he argued. “What about his presidency was presidential?”
In the end, Steele predicted, Trump will act like a proper politician when he goes head to head with Ron DeSantis, who is rumored to run for the Republican ticket:
“But right now, he’s going to grift.”
Watch the full discussion in the video above.
