Morning Joe Shouts Down Guest Defending Trump’s Violent Rhetoric

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Yesterday U.S. authorities arrested a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant who described himself as a white nationalist and amassed a cache of weapons to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.”

Today MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough started yelling at a conservative guest who tried to say that Donald Trump was not to blame for his followers threatening or committing acts of violence.

The more the truth about Donald Trump’s crimes and potential treason and conspiracy against the United States are reported in the media, the more Trump attacks the media as “the enemy of the people.”

And the more Trump attacks the media verbally, the more his mentally unstable followers decide to attack the media with weapons in order to inflict real bodily harm on journalists.

Scarborough himself was one of the media personalities who was threatened by the arrested Coast Guard lieutenant as part of his white nationalist plot.

Joe had as a guest today conservative Washington Examiner columnist Kristen Soltis Anderson. She suggested to her host that it was unfair to blame Trump for recent acts of violence toward journalists. She said:

“There’s a really big difference between saying, you know, I don’t know that I can trust everything I see in the news, and, I’m going to go Google search to try to figure out how I can cause physical harm to reporters.”

“There’s a huge leap there. There are always crazy individuals out there.”

“We had the newsroom shooting that tragically took the lives of some journalists in Annapolis not too long ago. That was inspired by local issues. The shooting of Gabby Giffords back during the Obama administration, it wasn’t inspired by politics, it was inspired by a man with severe mental issues who thought that things like the money was being manipulated.”

At this point Scarborough couldn’t take it anymore, and interrupted Anderson, asking her what the Coast Guard officer’s plot was inspired by, or bombs mailed to Trump critics by a fanatical supporter or a Pittsburgh synagogue shooting carried out by a man who cited Trump to justify his actions.

Anderson agreed that some acts could be inspired by rhetoric from the president, but then added:

“My point is even in the absence of President Trump, you have individual who are unstable and they’re adding additional comments to that existing recipes is a recipe for bad.”

Scarborough then asked his guest to explain how the Pittsburgh shooter and pipe bomb mailer weren’t inspired by the president.

“Joe, you have put words in my mouth,” Anderson objected. “I’m not saying this is not because of the president, I’m saying you already have existing layers of crazy, and when you have additional rhetoric added into that it creates a more unstable situation.”

Co-host Mika Brzezinski then interrupted to say Anderson was letting the president off the hook. But the journalist argued the point, saying:

“I 100 percent think President Trump views this like pro wrestling and no one is going to get hurt. My point is, in the absence of rhetoric, these are already dangerous professions professions — the media, politics — and viewing it like pro wrestling and I can say things like it doesn’t matter is a dangerous thing for the president to be doing, and I wish he would stop.”

Anderson also said Trump might just not believe he was responsible for the violence committed by his supporters, which Scarborough and Brzezinski immediately dismissed as ridiculous.

“He would have to be mentally impaired,” Scarborough said, “after seeing 11 people gunned down in a synagogue inspired by Donald Trump’s words, to see a guy sending pipe bombs around to try to threaten or hurt or kill, again, people that Donald Trump has attacked as his political opponents, his political enemies.”

“And now this Coast Guard situation where this guy had stockpiled weapons for some time,” he added, “and had a plan to go out and gun down people that Donald Trump identified as his enemies on Capitol Hill and in the press. How could Donald Trump not be aware that his words have actually led to violence and are inspiring others unhinged to commit further acts of violence?”

Donald Trump IS to Blame For Violence, and He Must Take Responsibility For It

One thing that today’s Morning Joe interview points out is that the president and his supporters believe that he has no responsibility for the acts of political violence perpetrated by his followers. But this is clearly untrue.

Donald Trump thinks he can win the 2020 election for president by appealing to his racist and white nationalist supporters. In fact he is thrilled when they take his violent rhetoric and act on it, killing blacks, Jews, Hispanics and journalists.

But America is better than Donald Trump, and a great majority of Americans do not support him and his racist views. In next year’s elections they will have their say, and Donald Trump will be thrown out of office.

CLICK HERE to watch the interview on Morning Joe

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.