Joe Scarborough Loses His Mind On Air And Bullies Guest Over Benghazi

morning joe benghazi

 

During Thursday’s broadcast of Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough lashed out at a guest and caused one of the more shameful and embarrassing moments to be seen on cable news in recent history, and that is saying a lot. The panel was discussing emails that were released recently by the White House, which the right has pointed to as a smoking gun when it comes to Benghazi. For Republicans that have been trying to make this supposed scandal stick, one particular email apparently shows complete and total proof that the White House tried to cover-up the truth about Benghazi. Of course, the email in question is actually one that discusses the administration’s overall foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East and was not a directive to get then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice to mislead the public on the truth about Benghazi, but that hasn’t stopped the media from running with it lately.

Anyway, Scarborough took charge during the discussion and was in full outrage form. After playing a clip of ABC’s Jonathan Karl peppering White House Press Secretary Jay Carney with questions on Wednesday about the email and how it proves that the White House was trying to cover-up what happened in Benghazi for political reasons, Scarborough then went into full-on crazy wingnut mode, claiming that the White House is using ‘doublespeak’ when saying that this email wasn’t about Benghazi as much as it was about the discussion of foreign policy at the time.

Frothing at the mouth, Scarborough then threw it to guest Donny Deutsch, who tried to talk about how this email and Benghazi in general will likely be ‘fool’s gold’ for the Republicans, especially if they try to run on it all the way through 2016. Well, that didn’t sit well with Scarborough, as you can see in the video below:

 

 

Deutsch trying to bring up the political ramifications down the road regarding the Republicans’ obsession with Benghazi apparently led to Scarborough blowing a gasket, as he ramped up the crazy to 11 and went into full attack mode. For at least a couple of minutes, Scarborough did nothing but yell at Deutsch about how this isn’t about politics but about an administration that is fooling the American people. The fake outrage was strong with Scarborough during this time, as he was spitting, yelling and flinging newspapers everywhere, claiming that the White House feels it can just lie directly to the public and tell them that it is something else.

While Scarborough did calm down eventually, especially after Sam Stein was asked about his thoughts and Stein politely told Scarborough that he had multiple points he wanted to discuss after Joe tried to bully him, the damage had already been done. Scarborough didn’t come off as passionate about a cause he believes in. Instead, he came across as unhinged and a bully. It was just a shameful, shameful moment for a show that has had its share of them over the years.

The worst part about all of this is that Scarborough and the rest of the panel, much like Karl, apparently didn’t read through the emails in full, and instead just saw one section that they think provides full and total proof that President Obama and his staff tried to cover-up what happened in Benghazi in order to maintain the illusion that there was not a failure of foreign policy. However, the excerpt that everyone is pointing to is indeed in an email from Ben Rhodes discussing the entire Middle East and how it relates to their foreign policy.

Below is the excerpt:

  • To underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video, and not a broader failure of policy;

 

The entire string of emails that were sent on September 14th, 2012 can be seen here. Also, Sarah Jones wrote about this on Wednesday and discussed how the White House is being truthful about the nature of these emails. It appears that Karl and Scarborough, as well as countless other Republicans and conservative media figures, somehow took a section of an email that discussed all of the protests that occurred in the Middle East at that time, which were related to the video, and are applying it to Benghazi specifically because there was another section of a previous email titled ‘Benghazi’.

The fact is, that section of the communication states that “there are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations,” that “the investigation is ongoing” and “the assessment may change.” In other words, there was one portion of the communication that was sent discussed Benghazi in particular and another portion that spoke broadly about all of the protests and how it relates to foreign policy. In right-wing pundit world, that means that the entire communication, which consisted of numerous emails, was only about Benghazi.

 

Justin Baragona

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