MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said that Donald Trump could have succeeded in his baseless attempt to overturn the election if he “weren’t so stupid.” The “Morning Joe” host then warned that extremists — on the left or the right — will continue to threaten American democracy if social media sites remain unchecked.
“The danger to the Republic is the people on the right, people on the left, people in the center, people who believe in nothing, have seen how easy it is to break into American democracy and actually put it a risk,” Scarborough said on Tuesday’s show, alluding to Trump’s post-election efforts to change the results, from dozens of baseless legal cases to encouraging his followers to march upon the Capitol on the day of the election certification, causing a riot that led to six deaths.
“If Donald Trump weren’t so stupid, he actually could’ve pulled this off,” he continued.
Calling Facebook and Twitter “the sponsors” of Trump’s misinformation for the last four years, Scarborough implored, “It is up to you, it is up to me, it is up to Facebook, it is up to Twitter, it is up to all of us to make sure this never happens again.”
Scarborough then acknowledged that he was “guilty” of frequently having Trump on his program in 2015 during his first presidential campaign but said, “Post-2015, Facebook and Twitter and Fox News carried that lie forward day in and day out. The consequences were devastating.”
The MSNBC host said the deadliest consequence was the 400,000-plus American deaths from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which Scarborough reminded viewers that Trump repeatedly downplayed and spread misinformation about.
Scarborough ended the segment with a warning: “Don’t think this was a one-time event and someone on the far-right wing. Because DT isn’t far-right wing … that’s what we have to be looking for in the future.”
Watch the clip above.