While urging media outlets to not fall for “this both sides game,” Morning Joe plays brutal compilation of Donald Trump's violent rhetoric
Scarborough: “And so they think they can gaslight us and say, 'Oh, the Democrats are really the ones that are fueling the rhetoric, the violent rhetoric.' It's just not true.”
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Citation
From the September 17, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe
JOE SCARBOROUGH (HOST): I mean, there's so many, Jonathan Lemire. There's so many examples where he, you know, during January 6th, as Peter Baker wrote in "The New York Times" today, he suggested that maybe Mike Pence deserved lynching. He's talked about treason and executing chairman of the Joint Chiefs, his chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley. He's talked about being a dictator from day one. He's talked about terminating the Constitution, if that's what was required for him to overturn the 2020 election. I could go down the list. He's agreed with the idea that Liz Cheney should face a military tribunal.
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The fact that — and this is what I see people doing, sometimes in the mainstream media, certainly on some of the pro-Trump stations, but, also, sadly on mainstream newsletters, trying to flatten out the differences, and preaching this phony moral relativism, that somehow the rhetoric from the left and the right are equally inflammatory. It's grotesque. They know they're lying. And again, we could keep going down the list. Feel free to add on if you'd like. But it's been nine years of talking about beating the hell out of people. It's been nine years about talking about terminating the Constitution. It's been nine years of mocking and ridiculing Nancy Pelosi's husband in his 80s for being brutalized by somebody screaming what they were screaming at the capitol on January the 6th, "Where's Nancy? Where's Nancy?" And so they think they can gaslight us and say, "Oh, the Democrats are really the ones that are fueling the rhetoric, the violent rhetoric." It's just not true. It's an out and out lie, and I certainly hope that Democrats aren't cowed by this lie.
JONATHAN LEMIRE (CO-HOST): It is certainly not true, and we are seeing members of the media and Republicans trying to work the refs right here to do that, to play this both sides game, when it is simply not accurate or appropriate. From the very beginning of his political career, a political career that was birthed on the back of a racist lie, birtherism, continued with incendiary, offensive language about Mexicans being rapists when he kicked off his campaign after coming down the escalator in June of 2015. And ever since, he has embraced dehumanizing rhetoric and he's embraced violent rhetoric.
He's embraced racist rhetoric and he has indeed spurred on his followers to commit crimes in his name, and culminating with storming the capitol, but he's not done. He's also threatened that there would be a bloodbath if he weren't elected president this November. This is a hallmark of who he is, and we have seen him inspire in both big ways and small, and I count myself as among the many members of the media who have been threatened, who have had to have law enforcement involved because of Trump's supporters inspired by what he said. And there's simply no comparison to what is said from the other side.