Former Congressman and current MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has been noticeably absent from his TV show Morning Joe following President Joe Biden’s troubling debate performance against former President Donald Trump. Scarborough, who’s been one of Biden’s loudest supporters, pulled a 180 and did something completely out of character: spoke out against the president. His wife Mika Brzezinski then reiterated support on Monday’s show, but Scarborough was nowhere to be seen. So where is he?
Scarborough appeared on the Friday after the debate on his show and said the president should consider stepping down after his lackluster performance against Trump.
“We’ve been asking, why is this race close? We have no idea why this race is close. We saw last night why this race has been close, and why I fear Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States, unless things change.”
After saying Biden is “hurting America” by staying in the race, he asked “Is it time for him to step down?”. He continued that the “window” wasn’t completely closed in terms of getting a new nominee for President but that time is short.
His appraisal of the performance itself was no less jarring:
“What all of us saw last night. The inability to complete sentences. The inability to make easy layups. One after another after another after another. It was the worst debate performance in modern political history.”
Woof. Those are not light words. And that’s the last thing we saw of him. Fox News is, of course, loving it, saying that Scarborough had to “lay low” following the debate.
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, was a staunch Trump supporter in 2016, and had the former president on the show a whopping 41 times. However, once it became clear that Trump was the 2024 nominee, Scarborough and co-host Brzezinski completely changed their tune.
“He will imprison, he will execute whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country.” Scarborough said about a possible second term for Trump. “Just look at his past! It’s not really hard to read.”
Scarborough even claimed Trump was “scared out of his mind” to debate Biden and that he was “whining and whimpering” because he was going to get beat “really badly.”
On Monday’s show, Brzezinski rolled up her sleeves and turned the anti-Biden boat around. She spent the first quarter hour of the show blowing metaphorical kisses to Biden and pushing back on the whole ‘he’s too old’ thing:
“More than three days after that debate, it is still hard to comprehend what we saw from that president. … And yet, the very next day in North Carolina, there was Joe Biden. Back to form, finding his voice, his winning smile, his vintage sparkle back in his eyes, two appearances that were as different as, well, night and day.”
So, is Scarborough just taking some time off? It’s one heck of a time to do so. Was he asked to take a break by the higher-ups at MSNBC? We don’t know for sure, but the timing of the absence certainly is suspect.