Joe Scarborough Defends Donald Trump’s 9/11 Lies, Says There’s An “Element Of Truth” To Them
You just knew that Donald Trump’s loyal sycophants would come out of the woodwork and defend him against the big, bad, mean ol’ media this week. In the aftermath of yet another controversy stirred up by rotten grapefruit’s unchecked bigotry and xenophobia, Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough made sure to back up his fascist hero. Following up another campaign event where Trump reiterated that he personally saw thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating when the World Trade Center come down on 9/11, Joe said that Trump merely exaggerated the totals but didn’t lie.
Trump has been under fire from the media and fact checkers over his inflammatory and totally unnecessary remarks regarding American Muslims’ reaction to the terror attacks on 9/11. Instead of backing off or saying that he may have confused footage of the Middle East that day with unfounded rumors that floated around at the time, Trump and his campaign ‘team’ have insisted that The Donald is absolutely correct. Pointing to a September 2001 Washington Post article that discusses some people being questioned for allegedly holding rooftop parties, Trump claims that this vindicates him and proves he is right.
And conservative media figures have followed him down that rabbit hole. Even though police and government figures in New Jersey say there is no proof anyone celebrated on rooftops or in the streets, and nobody has video or photographic evidence despite the intense media focus surrounding the attacks, some agenda-driven pundits have latched onto that one singular Post article as confirmation of Trump’s truthfulness. Proving himself to be the worst of the worst when it comes to partisan hackery, Scarborough got down on his knees Wednesday morning to service his master.
During a broadcast that featured Joe and his lackey Nicolle Wallace endlessly bitching about how weak and un-American President Obama is, Scarborough went off on a little tirade where he said Trump didn’t lie and shut down anyone who told him otherwise. After co-host Mika Brzezinski highlighted Trump’s latest defense of his comments, revealing that she may have finally jumped off the reality TV star’s bandwagon, Joe had the following to say:
“You know what, there is one element of truth to what Trump’s saying that is true and funny because the poor Washington Post reporter writes this. At the time. And now he’s really, really backing up, going ‘Oh I don’t know what I saw.’ Listen, if he didn’t see it he wouldn’t have put it in the newspaper. So this is what people always do. They overreact to Donald Trump’s overreaction and in overreacting to Donald Trump’s overreaction whether it was a joke he said about McCain or whether it was, remember it was a list of things every Sunday. The mainstream media overreact and give him a kernel of truth to hold on. Now [co-host] Willie [Geist], everybody’s saying oh, nobody ever danced on rooftops. There’s a Washington Post article that says they did. Just say he’s exaggerating.”
As Mika demurely tried to disagree with Scarborough, telling him none of this was funny as Joe laughed, panelist Steve Ratner attempted to explain to Joe that the Post article doesn’t validate ANYTHING Trump has said. However, the former Republican Congressman wasn’t having any of it, cutting off Ratner and again saying that the piece confirmed Trtump is telling the truth, even if he is exaggerating a bit.
“But the point is though, it’s in The Washington Post, just say they investigated it and it may have been a handful of people and Trump is exaggerating it to a thousand people. Now everybody is going around, going ‘oh, it never happened.’ Well, if it never happened,Willie, why did The Washington Post report on it?”
And that’s how Joe rolls. Does it matter that he has any idea what he is talking about? No. Does it matter that he is essentially being a Presidential candidate’s surrogate while hosting a news show? Not at all. Does he care that he is blatantly pushing falsehoods for a man who is bringing white nationalism to the forefront this election? Fuck no!
And that is what goes untouched here by most of the media. Even if there is a kernel of truth to what Trump is saying, whether it is about 9/11, black crime or immigration, why is he saying it? What is the purpose of him discussing the actions of American Muslims fourteen years ago, other than to whip his base into a racist frenzy? That is the only purpose. Hate, anger, ignorance and fear is what is driving Trump supporters. And he knows it all too well.
Below is video of the segment, courtesy of Media Matters:
