Tag: Joe Scarborough

Trump’s enablers are misreading the stars

The following commentary by Joe Scarborough was posted on the Washington Post website February 1, 2018:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), left, and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” Cassius counseled his friend and fellow republican Marcus Brutus. In Shakespeare’s telling of the tragedy of Julius Caesar, the triumphant general returns to Rome and is feared to be plotting to become an emperor capable of laying waste to the Roman republic. But Brutus takes to heart Cassius’s reminder that loyalties flow first to the republic and not to political friends. He acts on the warning, helps to kill Caesar and then dies a miserable death. Alas, no one lives happily ever after.

This week’s story line out of Washington is less grim but still of great concern. Despite daily reminders that President Trump holds democratic traditions in deep contempt, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and his Republican caucus are allowing themselves to become co-conspirators in the president’s push to compromise U.S. constitutional norms. While no one expects the GOP to take grisly cues from Shakespeare, is it too much to ask that Ryan place grave national security concerns from the Justice Department ahead of his political peonage to Trump? Continue reading “Trump’s enablers are misreading the stars”

Even now, Republicans are ignoring the storm clouds

The following commentary by Joe Scarborough was posted on the Washington Post website January 26, 2018:

Joe Scarborough
Credit: NBC/Today

We learned this week that President Trump in June ordered the firing of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, but few Republicans on Capitol Hill bothered to raise an eyebrow. In more settled times, this kind of presidential assault on an independent investigation would have stirred grave concerns throughout the halls of Congress. But Trump’s corrupted coalition has instead trotted out one twisted conspiracy theory after another, all designed to distract the president’s most fevered fans and concoct a case against Mueller’s investigation.

Wild tales of secret societies, Obama wiretaps and “deep-state” conspiracies flow freely from the tongues of Trump apparatchiks. Those preposterous narratives are then spread across cable news networks and inside Capitol Hill cloakrooms. Continue reading “Even now, Republicans are ignoring the storm clouds”

I asked Trump a blunt question: Do you read?

The following commentary by Joe Scarborough was posted on the Washington Post website January 4, 2018:

Opinion writers Jonathan Capehart, Molly Roberts, Dana Milbank and Ruth Marcus discuss the potential fallout from Michael Wolff’s book, “Fire and Fury.” (The Washington Post)

Michael Wolff’s tantalizing takedown of President Trump’s White House is so tightly packed with tales of political convulsion and personal betrayal that official Washington will be buzzing off its sugar high for weeks. But after the shock of Wolff’s account of Trump’s willful ignorance and intellectual incoherence fades, Americans will be left with the inescapable conclusion that the president is not capable of fulfilling his duties as commander in chief.

The GOP’s defense of this indefensible president appears even more preposterous following Wolff’s revelation, in his new book, “Fire and Fury,” of former adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s observation that members of Trump’s team, including his son, committed nothing less than treason. (Disclosure: I am thanked in the book’s acknowledgments and make an appearance in a handful of passages.) Republican politicians who have spent the past year eagerly wading through the slimy political backwash churned up by Trumpism will look even more foolish aping the former reality star’s attacks on the special counsel. Despite their desperate declarations that the Vietnam War hero is dragging his feet, Robert S. Mueller III has proved himself ruthlessly efficient in rooting out public corruption. Continue reading “I asked Trump a blunt question: Do you read?”

Trump’s working-class supporters are about to pay the price

The following commentary was posted on the Washington Post website December 21, 2017:

President Donald Trump discusses Congress’ final approval of the tax bill. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

The political system is rigged for the richest insiders in America.

When we talk about the insider, who are we talking about? It’s the comfortable politician only looking out for his own interest. It is the lobbyist who knows how to put that perfect loophole in every single bill to get richer and richer and richer at your expense. Continue reading “Trump’s working-class supporters are about to pay the price”

Trump’s mental meltdown

The following commentary by Joe Scarborough was posted on the Washington Post website December 7, 2017:

President Trump in the Oval Office. ANDREW HARNIK / AP

Donald Trump spent much of 2016 questioning his opponent’s stamina to be president of the United States. But it is now Trump’s own fitness that is being scrutinized by friends and foes alike. After Trump spent recent weeks creating a level of chaos unseen around the White House since Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Capitol Hill politicians and media outlets are quietly questioning whether Trump is fit for the highest office in the land. That the commander in chief slurred his way through the end of a speech on Jerusalem Wednesday was just the latest in a string of unsettling incidents.

Many who move through his orbit believe Trump is not well. That is a verdict that was reached long ago by many of the president’s own staff. More than a few politicians and reporters across Washington have shared similar fears. Continue reading “Trump’s mental meltdown”

Scarborough: Trump Is In Early Stages Of Dementia

The following article by Jessica Kwong with Newsweek posted on the National Memo website December 1, 2017:

MSNBC Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough fired back at President Donald Trump on air Thursday morning by claiming “people close to him during the campaign told me he had early stages of dementia.”

Trump is “completely detached from reality,” Scarborough said. “You have somebody inside the White House that the New York Daily News says is mentally unfit, that people close to him say is mentally unfit.”

Scarborough was responding to a tweet on Wednesday in which Trump rejoiced over the firing of Matt Lauer from NBC for inappropriate sexual behavior and said, “Will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the ‘unsolved mystery’ that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!” Continue reading “Scarborough: Trump Is In Early Stages Of Dementia”

Joe Scarborough: Trump’s dangerous lie about Russia

The following commentary by Joe Scarborough was posted on the Washington Post website February 7, 2017:

(Don Emmert/Agence France-Presse; Natalia Kolesnikova/Getty Images)

President Trump’s claim that America is morally on parwith Russia’s corrupt dystopian regime was so historically ignorant that even timid Republicans felt compelled to speak out this week. Perhaps that is because remaining silent in the face of such a morally disorienting claim would make them look like fools. Vladimir Putin is, after all, the same ruthless autocrat who kills journalists and political rivals who cross his path. He is also the same man who called the Soviet Union’s collapse “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

The evil empire Putin admires says much about the tyrant our new president defends. Burning with resentments carried over from a fallen empire, Comrade Putin hopes to rebuild the U.S.S.R. one invasion at a time. And while Putin pursues that delusional dream, Trump should be reminded exactly what kind of world his new friend wants to create. Continue reading “Joe Scarborough: Trump’s dangerous lie about Russia”

Joe warns in new column ‘A Storm is Gathering’

In his latest Washington Post column, Joe Scarborough says ‘…2018 will be the most consequential political year of our lives.’ The Morning Joe panel discusses.

View the NBC post here.