Joe Scarborough: Republicans Have ‘Promised to Go In and to Be Stupid’ in Trump’s Defense

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough has slammed House Republicans for their behavior at Wednesday’s public impeachment hearing. The Morning Joe host dismissed Republicans’ arguments in defense of Trump and agreed with presidential historian Jon Meacham that there was a stark contrast between them and the career diplomats testifying yesterday.

“But you had this world of facts and policy and the kind of — I don’t want to overplay the dignity part, but a dignity about and a seriousness about the American experiment up against guys who were talking about conspiracy theories that I found myself googling and they went pretty much to the same places,” Meacham said.

“So my own sense is the facts are the facts whether — whether congressmen and senators are going to say, you know what? This is what it is, that’s where we are.”

“The divide actually it’s even sharper,” Scarborough said. “You could do a divide between a literate testimony and an illiterate defense by Republicans.”

“And just to be fair to the Republicans, they’ve promised to be illiterate. They promise not to read reports. They’ve promised to go in and to be stupid when these hearings start. And they — that’s at least one promise that they — they fulfilled.”

“But while you had witnesses testifying about facts, and being as straightforward as possible in talking about U.S. foreign policy, you had the Republican side dredging up Facebook conspiracy theories that really it wasn’t a fair intellectual fight. And there was a divide between the literate and the illiterate. Those who spent their entire life trying to better themselves, to forge U.S. Foreign policy, and those who promised Americans that they were not going to read or be prepared for these hearings. And, well, that’s exactly what happened.”

Watch the video above.