MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough sends message to “Fox News’ sponsors” about the network’s continued insurrectionist rhetoric

Scarborough: For Fox News sponsors, to let you know what's happening now,” that network now claims ”Joe Biden and Democrats want to, quote, ‘exterminate’ all Republicans.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the January 22, 2021, edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe

JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): You know, Willie, I talked briefly before, and I don't want to get into it — because I don't want to give people the attention that they probably want.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): Very much, yes.

SCARBOROUGH: But I will say Fox News had someone I know, a former leader of the Republican Party, saying that Democrats wanted — and I'm using his words here — Democrats wanted to, quote, “exterminate,” exterminate all Republicans. Let me say that again, for Fox News’ sponsors, to let you know.

BRZEZINSKI: And he knows what he's doing.

SCARBOROUGH: For Fox News’ sponsors, to let you know what's happening now on Fox News. That they're getting people who are Fox News contributors, who are saying that Democrats — Joe Biden and Democrats want to, quote, “exterminate” all Republicans.

You also have Fox News hosts that are talking about how Democrats are using troops to make American people submissive. That they are not American troops — they are Democratic troops that are just there to show that they are in complete power.

This is sick, Willie. It's especially sick and damagin, here we are, what, a couple weeks after an insurrection against the United States of America. I understand that Fox News is having trouble because Newsmax is taking some of its viewers, and some of the people think that Fox News hasn't been harsh enough since the election.

But we had mobs surging up to the United States Capitol a couple of weeks ago. And you have a former Republican leader saying that all Democrats want to, quote, “exterminate” Republicans. That is patently — that is patently, patently un-American for him to say that. He is trying to gin up the base so he can make money on his mailing lists, so they can drive ratings up, and so he can inspire an insurrection against the United States as well.

Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich, a former Republican Speaker of the House, alleged Thursday night on Hannity that members of the Biden administration wanted to “exterminate the Republicans.” The day before the January 6 insurrection, Gingrich had also claimed on Sean Hannity's radio show that President Joe Biden's election was the worst assault on America, “maybe since the previous Civil War.”

Other hosts on Fox News, including Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, have suggested that the presence of the National Guard in Washington — in the wake of the attack upon the Capitol — is really a “message about power” and an “obscene move by Democrats to militarize Washington, D.C.”