‘Morning Joe’: Trump Longs ‘for the Good Old Days of Hanging’ Whistleblowers

MSNBC’s Morning Joe reacted with disbelief to President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the Ukraine whistleblower should be put to death. Co-host Joe Scarborough spoke to the Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson and Daily Beast‘s Sam Stein about the President’s reference to what was done to spies in the past.

“So, Gene, the President of the United States, we can’t underline this enough,” Scarborough said. “The President of the United States while at the United Nations, at our mission, talking to civil servants, people that actually work for the taxpayers, said of a whistleblower and those who gave the whistleblower information, in effect, that they were spies and if it were the good old days we could kill them.”

“That’s what he said. It was a death threat,” Robinson said.

“Isn’t it amazing how it parallels what he said in the campaign where he said in the good old days we could beat them up and take them out on a stretcher?” Scarborough said.

“Now Donald Trump is saying, in effect, we should be able to kill whistleblowers. I haven’t read the whistleblowers’ statute. I’m thinking it’s probably a violation to threaten death for a whistleblower, retaliation and long for the good old days of hanging people.”

The panel pointed out that when whistleblowers came forward during the Obama administration, Republicans praised them.

“Did any Republicans talk about any of the whistleblowers in the Obama Administration? That they should be hanged?” Scarborough asked.

“They were great, they should get the Medal of Freedom. But whistleblowers against him should get the chair. It is witness intimidation is what it is. It’s a very stark and dark warning to people around him,” Robinson said.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.