MSNBC host Joe Scarborough slammed Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin Tuesday for attempting to downplay Donald Trump’s comments about using the military against his political opponents.
The former president spoke in a Fox News interview Sunday about potentially using the National Guard or the military to deal with “the enemy from within”—a group which Trump characterized as “sick people, radical left lunatics”—when asked about his expectations for Election Day. In an interview with CNN the day after, Youngkin insisted Trump wasn’t really saying what he appeared to be saying.
CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out that Trump later specifically named Adam Schiff as one of the “lunatics”—as a congressman, Schiff led the first impeachment trial of Trump. Tapper became visibly frustrated as Youngkin continued to claim Trump was not talking about his political enemies, accusing Tapper of “misinterpreting and misrepresenting” the Republican nominee’s words.
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“I’m literally reading his quotes,” an exasperated Tapper said at one point, adding: “You can wish that he weren’t saying that, but that’s what he’s saying!”
After airing parts of the testy interview Tuesday on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough was similarly scathing.
“What’s so fascinating is [...] not really what Donald Trump said, except for the fact that what he is talking about is a fascist—right out of the fascist playbook, where you use the military to go after your political opponents,” Scarborough said.
“All these Trump apologists right now are people who are ashamed to vote for Donald Trump but are lying about Donald Trump and saying, ‘Oh, we got through four years without him doing anything.’ Yeah, we didn’t, actually,” Scarborough continued. “We didn’t get through Jan. 6. And also, again, for those that call themselves proud Reagan supporters or 41 supporters or whoever you’ve supported in the past, this is a guy that pressured his attorney general publicly and privately to arrest Hillary Clinton.”
Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump talks to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on the third day of the Republican National Convention.
Scott OlsonScarborough also cited the pressure Trump put on Bill Barr, his attorney general at the time, “to arrest Joe Biden two weeks before the 2020 election.”
“We’ve been here before and Republicans know it,” Scarborough said. “They keep lying for him. And again, I’m sorry, what’s in it for Glenn Youngkin? I’ve never understood what was in it for him, and what was in it for other people.”
The MSNBC host went on to ask why “Republicans have been doing this for nine years.”
“Glenn Youngkin is defending the use of the Army and the National Guard against Democrats,” Scarborough said. “Against Donald Trump’s political opponents. That’s where we are. That’s where America is. That’s where the Republican Party is three weeks from—can I say it now? The election of our lifetime.”
