Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,”host Joe Scarborough criticized Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for “fawning” over President Donald Trump in public while in private they “mock” him and say he “is a horrific president.”
After playing video of McConnell, Ryan and Hatch praising the president after lawmakers passed the tax bill, Scarborough said, “Most autocrats around the world would be embarrassed to have so many people fawning over them in public like that. You looked at what Mike Pence said in the Cabinet room also, I’m really serious here, you wonder, of course, it was such a gross display that of course Donald Trump as Donald Trump always does gets in his way of a successful day for the Republican party, for himself and for the biggest corporations in the world.”
He continued, “They knew that just like the Saudis and foreign leaders know, the price of admission is sucking up and treating him like he’s the most insecure autocrat on the globe, but I wonder what man, what man of any character would sit and listen to that without saying ‘Stop, stop,’ and being embarrassed. And then, of course the question, especially for Mike Pence is what man with any dignity would do the sort of thing that these people did yesterday.”
He added, “To say he’s one of the greatest presidents ever, to do what they did is unspeakable.”
Scarborough said,“Donald Trump is trying to build a personality cult. Have you ever seen, or have any of your colleagues ever seen, such a display of cravenness of members of Congress who are duly elect and equal to the president in power being so obsequeous to the president?”
Kasie Hunt agreed saying, “I was just so struck by the disparity between what they were saying in public and what we hear all the time behind the scenes in private about kind of the general exhaustion and unpredictability of working with this administration.”
Scarborough added “What is so striking, again, is if you look at what these members say behind closed doors, saying he is not mentally fit, saying that he is a horrific president, that he’s got terrible leadership skills.”
He added, “The very people on the stage saying those things are the ones quietly behind the scenes telling every reporter that will listen to them how embarrassed they are to be associated with him — every one of them. They roll their eyes, they mock him, they’re humiliated to be associated with that man. Then they go out and get behind the microphone and say that.”
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