Media

‘Morning Joe’ roasts Bill Barr for pledge to vote for ‘Republican ticket’

Then-Attorney General William Barr appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee May 1, 2019, to face lawmakers' questions for the first time since releasing special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senate Democratic leaders are demanding that Barr and Jeff Sessions testify about the secret seizure of data from House Democrats in 2018.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough tore into Bill Barr, who served as attorney general under former President Trump, for his pledge to support the Republican presidential ticket this fall.

During an interview on Fox News this week, Barr said that “given two bad choices, I think it’s my duty to pick the person I think would do the least harm to the country, and in my mind … I will vote the Republican ticket.”

Barr added Trump “may be playing Russian roulette, but a continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide.”

“That’s such a lie,” Scarborough exclaimed on his morning talk show. “He knows it’s a lie. … Barr is playing, I guess for a Fox News audience. I don’t know why he’s doing it. He doesn’t believe a word he just said. Because he knows how chaotic Donald Trump is.”

Barr has broken with Trump over his false claims about the 2020 election, but has remained sharply critical of President Biden and Democrats since leaving the Trump administration.

In a memoir he penned in 2022, Barr wrote Trump “lost his grip” after the 2020 election, noting “he stopped listening to his advisers, became manic and unreasonable, and was off the rails.”