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Scarborough Calls McConnell a ‘Snowflake’

October 10, 2018 at 9:07 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Joe Scarborough ripped Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Morning Joe for referring to protesters of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation as “angry mobs,” after attendees of President Trump’s campaign rally last night chanted “lock her up” in reference to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

Said Scarborough: “Now the president of the U.S. is holding rallies where angry mobs of people are demanding to lock up a U.S. senator because they disagree with her politics. I guess due process and keeping your head, that was in vogue for Republicans last week. Mitch McConnell must be shocked at the angry mobs.”

He added: “He was a snowflake just a couple days ago, just melting on national television because of all the angry mobs. I wonder what Mitch thinks again about people talking about locking up one of his colleagues… because they disagree with her politically. That’s an angry mob, right?”

Filed Under: Senate Tagged With: Joe Scarborough, Mitch McConnell

Trump Won’t Be Invited to Their Wedding

July 24, 2017 at 8:39 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York magazine has a good profile of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski:

Sources close to Trump told me he’s angered by what he perceives to be the phoniness of Scarborough and Brzezinski, the very sort of Washington bullshit he campaigned against in the first place: To his face, and to other members of his administration, they’re friendly; to the cameras, it’s a different story. And those sources in the White House believe the shift in tone on Morning Joe reflects a combination of frustration at being shut out of Trump’s orbit and simple jealousy — Scarborough has always been thought to have presidential aspirations. “He wanted to be president, and he’s not. And, of all people, Donald Trump is. This is crazy,” a second senior White House official said. “They lost access in month two, month one, of a White House where part of their stock-in-trade was ‘Donald this’ and ‘Donald that’ and ‘The president told me this’ and ‘People close to the president told me that.’ It became very obvious around here who they talked to every day, and it wasn’t the president.”

Scarborough and Brzezinski said the White House is misrepresenting their motivations, though they didn’t rule out that Scarborough might be interested in running for president in the future.

Filed Under: Media Buzz, White House Tagged With: Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzenzski

Scarborough Says He’s Quitting Republican Party

July 12, 2017 at 7:32 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Joe Scarborough, the longtime Republican political figure and MSNBC host whose public feud with President Donald Trump grew to a fevered pitch two weeks ago amid a series of heated attacks, said he is leaving the Republican Party,” Politico reports.

Said Scarborough: “I’ve got to become an independent.”

Filed Under: Republicans Tagged With: Joe Scarborough


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Kushner Delivered Threat to Scarborough

June 30, 2017 at 2:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

New York Magazine reports that Joe Scarborough’s main point of contact in the White House about a threatened National Enquirer story was Jared Kushner. It was Kushner who told Scarborough that he’d have to personally apologize to Trump in order to have the story spiked.

An NBC News spokesman told CNN that Scarborough kept several network executives apprised of the alleged threats “contemporaneously.”

Filed Under: Media Buzz, White House Tagged With: Joe Scarborough

Brzezinski and Scarborough Respond to Trump

June 30, 2017 at 6:52 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzenzski blast President Trump in an op-ed in the Washington Post for his Twitter rant about them:

The president’s unhealthy obsession with our show has been in the public record for months, and we are seldom surprised by his posting nasty tweets about us. During the campaign, the Republican nominee called Mika “neurotic” and promised to attack us personally after the campaign ended. This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked. We ignored their desperate pleas.

The president’s unhealthy obsession with “Morning Joe” does not serve the best interests of either his mental state or the country he runs. Despite his constant claims that he no longer watches the show, the president’s closest advisers tell us otherwise. That is unfortunate. We believe it would be better for America and the rest of the world if he would keep his 60-inch-plus flat-screen TV tuned to “Fox & Friends.”

They conclude:

More significant is Mr. Trump’s continued mistreatment of women. It is disturbing that the president of the United States keeps up his unrelenting assault on women. From his menstruation musings about Megyn Kelly, to his fat-shaming treatment of a former Miss Universe, to his braggadocio claims about grabbing women’s genitalia, the 45th president is setting the poorest of standards for our children.

Filed Under: White House Tagged With: Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzenzski

Quote of the Day

June 27, 2017 at 10:45 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“You talk to these jackasses behind closed doors and you go ‘what are you doing’ and they go ‘we’ve got to get to the tax bill so we’ve got to do this first.'”

— “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, quoted by The Week, marveling at the fact GOP lawmakers were willing to change “one-sixth of the economy so we can get to a tax bill.”

Filed Under: Health Care Tagged With: Joe Scarborough

Scarborough Tries to Repair Relations with Trump

September 19, 2016 at 4:16 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Last week, Joe Scarborough and his “Morning Joe” co-host, Mika Brzezinski, visited Donald Trump at Trump Tower to rekindle a once-rosy relationship that has turned bitter and adversarial, sources with knowledge of the meeting told CNNMoney.

The three also discussed the possibility of conducting an interview for “Morning Joe,” though nothing was decided or finalized.

Filed Under: 2016 Campaign Tagged With: Donald Trump, Joe Scarborough

GOP Has Destroyed Its Brand

March 10, 2016 at 7:31 am EST By Taegan Goddard 39 Comments

Joe Scarborough said the Republican Party has “shattered its brand,” Politico reports.

Said Scarborough: “Can we just stop for one minute and talk about how much the Republican Party has shattered its brand by comparing Democratic debates,” noting that the Democratic contests have been heavily focused on policy issues.

Republican debates, however, “focus on the size of hands, personal insults, the size of — suggestions about the size of body parts that we won’t even mention on this morning news show… The contrast is absolutely staggering, and as a Republican, I’ve got to tell you it’s extraordinarily depressing.”

Filed Under: 2016 Campaign, Republicans Tagged With: Joe Scarborough

Scarborough Says Trump Disqualified Himself Over KKK

February 29, 2016 at 6:00 am EST By Taegan Goddard 22 Comments

Joe Scarborough said that Donald Trump’s failure to explicitly disavow the Ku Klux Klan and former Grand Wizard David Duke is “disqualifying,” Politico reports.

Said Scarborough: “It’s breathtaking. That is disqualifying right there. To say you don’t know about the Ku Klux Klan? You don’t know about David Duke?”

Filed Under: 2016 Campaign Tagged With: Donald Trump, Joe Scarborough

Scarborough Says He Has No Grudge with Rubio

February 7, 2016 at 2:03 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 10 Comments

Joe Scarborough: “Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign has spent the past six months shopping a story to news organizations that suggests my reporting has been influenced by some long-held personal grudge between Rubio and myself. It’s an interesting narrative, but it’s not true… I have never met Rubio.”

Filed Under: 2016 Campaign Tagged With: Joe Scarborough, Marco Rubio

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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