Media

Scarborough on GOP Harris DEI attacks: ‘Total idiots’

by Tara Suter - 07/23/24 11:28 AM ET

FILE – In this Oct. 11, 2017, file photo, MSNBC television anchor Joe Scarborough takes questions from an audience at forum at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, on the campus of Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass. The husband of a woman who died accidentally in an office of then-GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough two decades ago is demanding that Twitter remove President Donald Trump’s tweets suggesting Scarborough murdered her. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough is slamming Republicans for attacking Vice President Harris as a “DEI candidate” now that she has become the likely Democratic presidential nominee with President Biden’s exit from the race.

DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, and is used as a shorthand for initiatives meant to increase diversity in employment and other areas.

“You’ve got Republicans being just total idiots, attacking her as being a ‘DEI candidate,’” Scarborough said on “Morning Joe” on Tuesday. “And, I will tell you, 99 percent of Americans don’t even know what those letters stand for. But they know that it’s probably racist.”

Democrats have speedily rallied around Harris, who has received a flood of endorsements and cash in the wake of her boss’s exit from the race.

“When I look at the vice president, I’m just looking at a — somebody that is a generation younger than [former President Trump], and I think it’s going to energize a lot of people that Democrats need to win this election,” Scarborough said.

Harris would be the first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to be elected president.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) has gone after Harris as a “DEI hire” and referred to her in a post on the social platform X on Monday as “our DEI vice president.”

“The incompetency level is at an all-time high in Washington. The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president,” Burchett said in his post.

DEI programs are often aimed at promoting fairness and equality in institutions and attempt to tackle historical inequities connected with racism, homophobia and sexism. They have come under attack from the right, with Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), currently the Republican nominee for vice president, introducing a bill last month to ban DEI programs and funding in the federal government.

“The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division,” Vance said in a previous statement. “It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society. I’m proud to introduce this legislation, which would root out DEI from our federal bureaucracy by eliminating such programs and stripping funding for DEI policies anywhere it exists.”