Morning Joe Scarborough
oddly? blank 4 24
he said he was a conservative as liz cheney?
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an 2 25 no lnx
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough shared an alarming reason he said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and other Republican senators are dropping their objections to some of Donald Trump's "unqualified" nominees for Cabinet posts.
Collins announced her support for Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence despite her previous objections, and the "Morning Joe" host said skeptical Republicans were approving Trump's choices in fear of something more ominous than a GOP primary challenge.
"You know, there's an old saying in soccer, in English football, it's the hope that kills you," Scarborough said. "Yeah, I suspect they have a similar saying in Maine about Susan Collins. It's the hope that kills you.
"I wonder if she was assured by the way Tulsi Gabbard handled her relationship with the butcher of Syria, [Bashar al-]Assad responsible for the murder of 500,000 Syrians, also, who used chemical weapons against his own people or, again, Edward Snowden, where she refused to condemn Snowden in one question after another question after another question."
"Susan Collins, supposedly a traditional Republican," Scarborough added. "There is no way she would ever vote for Tulsi Gabbard except for political expediency and fear, is there?"
Republican senators have said that Gabbard, a former Democratic lawmaker, appeared to be unprepared for their meetings and hearings, and they were "rattled" by her non-answer on Snowden. But some outspoken skeptics on Pete Hegseth and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made sudden flip-flops on their objections.
"Some members of Congress that I've spoken to said, 'Listen, it's not just the primarying that we have to worry about,'" said journalist Katty Kay. "'It's actually our own personal safety that we now have to worry about. I have to worry about the safety of my spouse, the safety of my children if I defy Donald Trump,' and when you've got Don Jr. coming out very forcefully and saying, 'We want all of these to be a yes,' there is no exception for Tulsi Gabbard. There is no exception for Bobby Kennedy.
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"He is speaking for the MAGA base, and literally I've had members of Congress say, 'Look, you know, you do have to worry in this day and age, you have to worry about your own safety, as well — it's not just the primary factor."
Collins did vote against Hegseth, who was confirmed after Vice President J.D. Vance stepped in to break a 50-50 tie after Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) opposed his nomination. But so far, none of Trump's nominees have attracted a crucial fourth Republican vote against them.
"Let's again underline what Katty just said," Scarborough said. "Members of Congress are telling her that they're not only afraid of primary challenges, they're afraid of violence. They're afraid of violence if they vote against people who are unqualified to run the most important agencies in America."
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MSNBC's Morning Joe discusses impacts of climate change on insurance costs and payouts
10/08/24 mma
panel on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday highlighted the role right-wing misinformation is playing in distorting perceptions about the state of the economy and the rate of inflation, which a majority of Americans incorrectly believe is headed in the wrong direction.
Wall Street Journal economic reporter Greg Ip drew attention to the enormous disparity between perception and reality when it comes to consumer sentiment about the economy in an April 4 article, titled “What’s Wrong With the Economy? It’s You, Not the Data.” Ip pointed to public opinion data showing that a vast majority of respondents incorrectly believed inflation has gone up in the past year, when indeed it has fallen significantly and stabilized in the nearly two years since peaking in June 2022. Furthermore, Ip highlighted a survey showing that by 40-to-60 point margins, respondents think the overall U.S. economy is getting worse while their own state economy is getting better. He also cited data indicating that by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, a majority of Americans wrongly believe the economy — which has enjoyed robust job creation and GDP growth — has gotten worse over the past year.
Ip's article spurred a conversation on the set of MSNBC's Morning Joe, where co-hosts Mika Brzenski and Joe Scarborough and New York Times columnist and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin keyed in on the role played by the partisan misinformation ecosystem in fomenting pessimism and distorting reality.
“The misinformation that’s been put out across the country about this issue is so shocking, because of the way people feel versus the actual reality of the numbers,” said Sorkin. “It’s hard to tell people that you shouldn't feel one way, and I know that is true, but the numbers are directionally, shockingly, going in a good place.”
NBC News national affairs analyst John Heilemann chimed in that while the economy has improved, the tapering of inflation happened slowly, and that from a political standpoint for the Biden White House, “You cannot argue people out of their feelings,” with Heilemann recommending a different approach.
“You have to figure out a way to say to them, hey, we know that prices are still too high, we know you're still feeling it in your pocketbook now, but look at all the progress we've made,” Heilemann said. “Give us some more time, because you know it's just going to be worse with Donald Trump. He's not on your side. We're on your side, we fixed a lot of stuff. This thing still, we need some work, we've made some progress, but not enough.”
Indeed, liberal and conservative economists agree that Trump’s policies would make inflation worse — but mainstream media outlets have barely covered this.
Scarborough then contrasted the poll findings that people thought their own state economies were doing well while the rest of the country was doing badly, then turned the question back to the sheer volume of right-wing media misinformation.
“I'm sorry but, you know, if you looked at certain cable news channels you would think we were in the middle of a Great Depression, that illegal immigrants were racing through schools across America stabbing people in the face, and that leprosy is going to be spread by migrants going across the border, and that trans athletes are coming to your middle school to beat up your, you know, sixth-grade girl,” Scarborough declared. “I mean, seriously, turn it on any time. Turn it on any time, and it’s the economy is in free fall, migrants are coming to kill you, and trans athletes. I mean, it's constant — it’s a constant, constant churning of these messages. And it has an impact on polls after [airing] 24/7.”
Right-wing media have often painted the completely false picture of the dystopian, even post-apocalyptic America that Scarborough described. On those exact topics that Scarborough mentioned, for example, Fox News has ignored or dismissed positive economic news, falsely depicted a “war on fossil fuels” when in fact the country is producing more energy than ever, and depicted minimum wage increases as a danger to the economy and American way of life. Fox has also run an obsessive level of coverage depicting migrants as a criminal threat to the country, and hyped supposed new threats without any empirical evidence. (Scarborough’s reference to immigrants purportedly carrying leprosy was actually a Fox News narrative from 2018.)
And of course, Fox has engaged in a vast culture war against transgender people, and the network drastically picked up its coverage in 2021 as soon as Democrats took control of the White House and Congress. This intense coverage has continued for years, including targeted hate campaigns, treating urban legends as if they’re real news, and whipping up new cultural battles via days of relentless coverage and dishonestly edited footage.
Watch the full segment from Morning Joe below: