MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Donald Trump and his ‘desperate’ family are ‘preparing for civil war,’ after Trump and family members linked a pair of assassination attempts to political rivals and spoke of an ‘enemy within.’
The morning host, a former Republican congressman from Florida, laced into Trump Monday morning, hours after Trump staged a dramatic rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the first attempt on his life.
Scarborough blasted him for ‘lies,’ and said the Trump family is ‘preparing for civil war.’
Trump voiced the ominous remarks in a rally where he said he and members of the MAGA faithful had ‘bled together’ in Pennsylvania.
‘Over the past eight years those who want to stop us from achieving this future, have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot. And who knows? Maybe even tried to kill me,’ Trump said in his rally speech Saturday.
He also returned to earlier comments about an ‘enemy within,’ which he called more dangerous than ruthless foreign adversaries.
‘You know, I always say there’s an enemy from within and there’s an outside enemy. And if you’re smart, the outside enemy is not going to be a problem. Russia, and China and North Korea, we’re not going to have a problem if you have a smart president. But we have an enemy from within which, I think is much more dangerous than the outside enemy.’
‘This is an increasingly desperate person, an increasingly desperate family, who is preparing for civil war,’ MSNBC cohost Joe Scarborough said after Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania
During his show, Scarborough played clips of Eric Trump and Trump daughter-in-law Lara Trump from their own remarks.
‘And then, guys, they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him. And it’s because the Democratic Party, they can’t do anything right,’ said the president’s son. ‘This is no longer a fight between Republican versus Democrat, left versus right, it is good versus evil and good is going to win this battle, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Lara Trump, a co-chair of the RNC and Eric Trump’s wife.
Scarborough said after playing those comments that ‘the level of un-American activity that you just saw is stunning.
‘That is un-American. They know they’re lying. Donald Trump knows that’s a lie. He will tell you that the Secret Service, he thought, did the best job they could do. The fact that J.D. Vance and Trump’s family would out and out say what they said, takes the threat of violence, takes the threat beyond where it was even leading up to January the 6th. This is an increasingly desperate person, an increasingly desperate family, who is preparing for civil war – Just are,’ he said.
Then he called out the comments again – this time also insulting Trump’s audience.
‘Talking about – they’re trying to kill him, Democrats are trying to kill him? And the lies. Think about this. I saw part of Donald Trump’s speech this weekend. It was remarkable, the lies. Not just on things, this here, but on policy, he’d make up things and throw it out there. I was shocked that the audience was really that stupid, to believe the crazy lies that he was throwing out there,’ Scarborough said, alongside his wife and cohost Mike Brzezinski.
Former president Donald Trump warned of an ‘enemy from within’ at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5
‘But he does it so much. It is the falsehood, the firehose of falsehoods,’ he said.
Then he brought up Trump’s repeated claims the election was stolen.
‘But they continue to lie about 2020. Vance continues lying about 2020. Trump continues lying about 2020. Senators will not say on Sunday news shows that Donald Trump lost in 2020, despite the fact Republican officials in every one of those states that mattered said that, yes, in fact, Donald Trump lost. [Georgia Gov.] Brian Kemp said it in Georgia. Republican officials said it in Michigan. Republican officials said it in Pennsylvania. They said it in Arizona. They have said it repeatedly,’ said Scarborough.
Late last week, President Joe Biden warned of the potential that the aftermath of the election could be violent, when asked if it would be free and fair, as well as peaceful.
Trump’s ‘enemy within’ line can trace itself to Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the red scare. McCarthy invoked an unidentified historical figure and said, ‘When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be from enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.’
Abraham Lincoln spoke in his Lyceum speech in 1838 about internal threats to the republic a generation before the Civil War, during a period of growing mob violence. ‘At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.’
