Following the VP debate, Morning Joe calls out the media for its “flattening of moral equivalency” in covering the Trump campaign
Scarborough: “Press doesn't even put on the front page that Donald Trump's answer to crime is a day of wanton violence and revolt”
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From the October 2, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe
MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): And that is that, you know, I actually, as this show has evolved over the course of four hours, I actually think Tim Walz did really well last night given the landscape. And it's not just dealing with a candidate like Donald Trump and JD Vance who lie repeatedly, daily. And that is a fact. That is not fiction. And The Washington Post even tried to track Trump's lies, and I think they ran out of paper. But you even look at, like, you were talking about how there should be a headline because Donald Trump said the other day there should be a day of violence to deal with crime in America. What does that exactly mean? Have we dived into that? Nope. We move on because there's more, because there's more.
And we have, we have Tim Walz getting asked a question about something he misspoke about. Clearly made a big mistake, failed, 23 years ago in Tiananmen Square, about being there. He's asked about that. Well, there's a candidate on the other side who supports an insurrectionist, someone who wants to pardon convicts, who's a convicted felon, who lies about legal migrants to the point where they're not safe. JD Vance does unbelievable lies every day, and yet they're put together like they're on the same level. And I don't really don't know how you fight against that if you're a candidate in this environment. I think it's almost impossible.
JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): Well, it's something we've been talking about. There's been a flattening of moral equivalency, and the fact is —
BRZEZINSKI: That's what it felt like last night.
SCARBOROUGH: — that we're talking about, and they should have brought up, what Walz has said about Tiananmen Square 23 years ago. But, again, the flattening of it.
BRZEZINSKI: Sure, it's legitimate.
SCARBOROUGH: The flattening of it. I saw this last night in pre-debate conversations on another network where somebody said, well, he, you know, Tim Walz exaggerated about this 23 years ago or exaggerated about that 30 years ago, where you have on stage, Willie, you have on stage —
BRZEZINSKI: 30 minutes ago.
SCARBOROUGH: — a guy that is lying about his own district, his own state, a guy whose governor, who's in his own party has to say, no, no, no. Stop lying about people who are legally working in Springfield and contributing to the economy. Stop spreading the hate. Stop right now. Like, the attempt by the media to level things out is pretty remarkable. I think, again, a moral equivalency that just doesn't hold up, again, especially when you've got a guy who last night can't even say, tell the truth about January 6th, can't tell the truth about the election last year.
BRZEZINSKI: Tim Walz had to ask him about it.
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. And, you know, press doesn't even put on the front page that Donald Trump's answer to crime is a day of wanton violence and revolt.
WILLIE GEIST (CO-HOST): And let's not forget, JD Vance was asked that question with the framing of his previous comments that he would not have done what Mike Pence did back in January of 2021. In other words, he would have allowed the process to play out in a way that the Constitution does not call for. He would not have stepped into that void and prevented what was coming. So when he was posed that question last night, asked directly, did he lose the election, he couldn't answer that for fear of making his boss unhappy. And there are so many issues you can point to on this equivalence idea that Joe and Mika are talking about.
I mean, we had 2 days ago, Donald Trump just telling a demonstrable lie that Joe Biden was not calling the governors of these southern states, then he went on to say that the Biden administration is not offering relief from the hurricane and these floods to red districts, to MAGA districts. Not true at all. Just seeking points of division through lies wherever he can find them, and we sort of just keep moving on because it's what he does.