Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough launched a furious rant Wednesday at Republicans and The Wall Street Journal for turning a blind eye to former President Donald Trump’s ‘fascist’ threats.
Scarborough, a former GOP member of Congress, pointed to The New York Times’ interviews with Trump’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly, who said in a story published Tuesday that Trump met the definition of a ‘fascist,’ would govern like a dictator and had no concept of the Constitution or the rule of law.
The MSNBC host was exceptionally hostile toward The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial board wrote in an op-ed Sunday that the American people weren’t buying the so-called ‘fascist meme,’ which the Journal said was merely a Democratic attack.
‘Two days after saying that, a general who served as Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff said yes, he’s a fascist,’ Scarborough pointed out. ‘The Wall Street opinion page might want to revisit this sneer.’
Scarborough also complained about the ‘grotesque fawning and rationalizing for a man who is promising in his words to be an autocrat.’
Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough (center) launched a furious rant Wednesday at Republicans and The Wall Street Journal for turning a blind eye to former President Donald Trump’s ‘fascist’ threats
Trump turned heads when he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo earlier this month that he would use the U.S. military on ‘the enemy within.’
Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats interpreted that to mean that Trump would use military force against his political enemies.
Harris even played the clip at a large-scale rally in Erie, saying it proved that the 78-year-old had become even more ‘unstable and unhinged.’
Scarborough had a similar interpretation, saying that the WSJ was ‘kowtowing’ to Trump despite him naming prominent Democrats including Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff, who will very likely be elected to the U.S. Senate, as those ‘enemies.’
The WSJ justified those comments by publicizing Trump’s walk-back, that in an interview with the paper the Republican nominee ‘made clear after some rambling that he was talking about destructive riots’
The Journal also argued that Trump’s ‘worst attempt at stretching executive power – reallocating military construction monday to build the border wall – was small beer compared with Mr. Biden’s lawless $400 billion student loan forgiveness.’
Kelly, who has not endorsed Harris, confirmed previous reporting that on more than one occasion Trump spoke positively of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
‘He commented more than once that, “You know, Hitler did some god things, too,’ the former chief of staff told the newspaper.
Kelly said he pressed the then-president to have a better understanding of history – as Hitler’s leadership of Germany led to the Holocaust and murder of six million Jews, and between 70 and 85 million on and off the battlefield.
‘First of all, you should never say that,’ Kelly said he told Trump. ‘But if you knew what Hitler was all about from the beginning to the end, everything he did was in support of his racist, fascist life, you know, the … philosophy, so that nothing he did, you could argue, was good – it was certainly not done for the right reason.’
During his rant Wednesday, Scarborough pointed out that Vanity Fair had previously reported that Ivana Trump talked ot her lawyer about how Trump would keep Hitler speeches by his bedside.
‘Again, it just fits a pattern. And you would think, though, that at some point there would be one thing… and Hitler seems would be a pretty good line in the sand to draw that Republicans wouldn’t reflexively defend him,’ Scarborough said.
‘I’m sorry. It’s really just hard to grasp,’ the former Republican lawmaker said. ‘Promising everyday to arrest his political opponents with the military. Again, it’s hard to grasp and yet Republicans continue to go along for the ride.’
At the end of the segment, Scarborough issued a warning.
‘This is more than an election to see who the next president is,’ the Morning Joe co-host said. ‘This is an election to determine the future fate of what form of government we have and if Madisonian democracy survives.’
