Scarborough slams ‘entire mainstream media’ for being ‘reflexively anti-Trump’
MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough slammed “the entire mainstream media” for “being anti-Trump on all things” during a podcast interview with former NBC morning star Katie Couric.
“The entire mainstream media, we are reflexively anti-Trump on all things,” Scarborough told Couric, who launched her podcast with co-host Brian Goldsmith in 2017.
“We’re over our skis and it’s going to hurt us,” “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski added.
A recent Pew Research year-end media analysis showed that President Trump received 5 percent positive coverage in 2017. In contrast, President Obama’s coverage in his first year was 20 percent negative. Overall, Trump received more than three times more negative coverage than his predecessor, according to Pew.
The perspective from Scarborough and Brzezinski comes after they have hammered Trump and his family for the past 20 months on a regular basis, particularly on a personal level.
Scarborough has repeatedly stated that Trump has “early-onset dementia” on the program and once said the president “looked like a kid who pooped in his pants.” Brzezinski, meanwhile, has called first daughter Ivanka Trump “useless” and urged her to “go home” back to New York.
“We have a president who, Mika and I believe through knowing him, is not mentally stable. Is less stable a year and a half ago when people on his campaign told me they believe he had early-onset dementia,” Scarborough reiterated to Couric.
Trump once appeared on the program on a regular basis during the Republican primary season in 2015 into early 2016. Critics even called the interviews conducted by the longtime “Morning Joe” hosts too friendly.
But relations soured between the candidate and hosts around the time President Trump secured the GOP nomination in April 2016. He has not appeared on “Morning Joe” or MSNBC in any capacity in 2016 and has periodically attacked Brzezinski and Scarborough, returning fire on Twitter and referring to the engaged couple as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and “Psycho Joe.”
In a tweet in late November, he called for Scarborough and MSNBC president Phil Griffin to be terminated in the wake of “Today” host Matt Lauer’s firing, mentioning an “‘unsolved mystery’ that took place in Florida years ago.”
“So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the ‘unsolved mystery’ that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!” the president wrote to his 43.6 million followers at the time.
So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017
{mosads}Trump was referencing Lori Klausutis, 28-year-old office staffer who worked for Scarborough when he was a representative from Florida. Klausutis was found dead in the congressman’s district office in July 2001.
A local medical examiner ruled the death an accident, saying Klausutis had collapsed and hit her head on the side of a desk.
Couric and Goldsmith’s interview with Scarborough and Brzezinski will air Thursday.
The podcast also announced it will “host a series of candid, unscripted conversations with newsmaking wonder women,” including Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, Kara Swisher of Recode, actress and comedian Amy Schumer, and Laverne Cox of Netflix’s “Orange is the New Black” in coming weeks.
This report was updated at 9:31 a.m.
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