MSNBC’s Morning Joe spent a fair amount of time on Tuesday’s show discussing Donald Trump‘s day-one actions, including his pardoning of the Jan. 6 rioters.
And the exchange, between married co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough and guest Donny Deutsch, grew tense.
Way Too Early host Ali Vitali said of the president’s pardoning of the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, “The fact that that can just be done with the stroke of a pen, I think that it all served to underscore for Republicans on the hill, for Democrats on the hill, for everyone in Washington and beyond, support him or not, but this is how it is now.”
Joe Scarborough then responded that Democrats were “quietly reminding themselves” that Trump only beat Vice President Kamala Harris by 1.5 percent in the popular vote in the 2024 election and that “Republicans have a one vote majority in the House and a three vote majority in the Senate.”
At this point, marketing expert Deutsch chimed in, “We can say that to ourselves, [but Trump] has co-opted America’s heartbeat,” he remarked.
Brzezinski then interjected, recalling how Trump was standing with the families of Israeli hostages as he referred to the Jan. 6 rioters as “hostages” during Monday’s Inauguration Day proceedings.
“Well, if America’s heartbeat is to have hostage families and former hostages standing behind him, that marketing visual is quite something,” she said, adding, “I’m talking about [Jan. 6].”
Deustch continued, “People will absorb it because he gives them what they want in other places.”
“I want the Democrats to learn that you can even get away with something as ridiculous as that if you’re feeding people what they want to hear,” he added.
Joe Scarborough then took his chance to interject, comparing Trump to a corrupt Caesar. “And he’s providing the bread and the circuses, as they said in Roman days,” he said. “That entertains them. But underneath that, there are things that he’s doing, breaking one norm after another,” he added.
Brzezinski and Scarborough’s criticism of the president’s day one actions comes a little over two months after the talk show couple were lacerated by liberals for privately visiting then-President-elect Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate back in November.
Many critics had accused Scarborough and Brzezinski of normalizing and even validating Trump’s actions by visiting him in an unofficial setting. Others, more harshly, accused the couple of “bending the knee” and “kissing the ring” of the incoming president out of fear of future repercussions.