Watch Joe Scarborough Refuse To Accept That A Trump Ad Condemned By The ADL Is Anti-Semitic

From the November 7 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe

Video file

MIKA BRZEZINSKI (CO-HOST): That was part of the two-minute Donald Trump campaign television ad entitled Donald Trump's Argument for America. The ad will run on several channels in both prime time and throughout the NFL, NCAA, and NASCAR programming. It will also air in major markets in a variety of battleground states. 

JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): I've got to say, so I made the mistake because it's a real populist message there, of tweeting out hey this is a really good ad. Suddenly, I was compared to Adolf Hitler by about 20 or 30 people. 

BRZEZINSKI: This is a tough time for you to tweet. 

SCARBOROUGH: But no, here's the deal. I played the clip for like five different people and I said, is that anti-Semitic? No. There are dog whistles, but the dog whistles are to people that -- I guarantee you, play that ad and you'll probably disagree with me here Ana, but play that ad to 100 Americans in Middle America, 99 of them will go, that's cool. Yeah I don't like big banks. I don't think people are going -- 

ANA MARIE COX: Do you mean 100 white people? 

SCARBOROUGH: No. 

COX: Because I think actually it does really matter if you -- 

SCARBOROUGH: What do you mean, 100 white people? 

COX: I mean that if you are more sensitive to those dog whistles, if you're a person whose ethnic or gender or whose background has put you at some sort of in a vulnerable place --

SCARBOROUGH: Well that's -- but isn't that talking about vulnerable people and how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? 

COX: You know, there's some of it that there  -- I do hear what you're saying. 

SCARBOROUGH: And by the way, are the dog whistles not, and I'm going to let youactually talk, but are the dog whistles -- 

COX: Breaking. 

SCARBOROUGH: Not -- Yeah, exactly. You be called anti-Semitic all week and then you might want to enunciate your feelings about this. The dog whistles would go to the white people. So if the 100 white people don't hear the dog whistles then it's a pretty ineffective dog whistle because the people this weekend that were hearing it were liberals who said, oh, this is anti-Semitic. A lot of the same liberals who are completely silent when anti-Semitism on elite college campuses, oh, yes, they are, rage, or in Europe, rage. Suddenly they're anti-Semitic. Go ahead. 

COX: Well I think that you don't have to hear a dog whistle in order for it to work in a way. Maybe dog whistle is like the wrong metaphor here because I think what's happening with the Trump phenomenon, the kinds of stuff he's saying, I don't think people necessarily his supporters hear that and think to themselves, yeah I really hate Jewish people, I really hate black people. What they hear is something that sort of calls to them a kind of nostalgia for an America that used to be. 

Related

ADL: Trump's Closing Argument Ad Invokes Anti-Semitic Images, Rhetoric

Previously

Trump's Anti-Semitic Speech Came From Breitbart, The Alt-Right, And Alex Jones

Anti-Defamation League: Anti-Semitic Attacks On Journalists On The Rise From Trump Supporters

White Nationalist Leaders Praise Trump’s “Stunning” Anti-Semitic Tweet