MSNBC host Joe Scarborough claimed President Trump would send in the authorities to haul him and other journalists away in handcuffs if he could.
On Wednesday morning, Trump congratulated Attorney General William Barr for announcing that the Justice Department would seek a more lenient sentence for the president’s longtime associate Roger Stone. During his show on Wednesday, Scarborough criticized Trump and Barr and questioned whether Sen. Susan Collins still believed that Trump “learned his lesson” after being impeached in the House.
“Susan Collins, I’m curious if you really still think that Donald Trump learned his lesson, or if the lesson that Donald Trump learned was, with senators like you giving him a blank check, he can do whatever the hell he wants,” Scarborough said. “[Lt. Col. Alexander] Vindman, that’s on you. [Ambassador to the European Union Gordon] Sondland, that’s on you. Roger Stone? Susan Collins, that’s on you.”
Scarborough claimed Trump’s encouragement related to the Stone case is one of several examples of lawlessness from the past few weeks. He added, “Our constitutional republic, literally, and the institutions in it, literally are being challenged every single day by this would-be dictator.”
He argued that Trump would abolish freedom of the press and round up reporters from MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post if he had the power.
“You tell me. Would Donald Trump not do whatever he could do if he could get away with it?” Scarborough asked. “Seriously. If he could arrest every journalist he didn’t like, if he could arrest us tomorrow, let me ask you a question, do you think he would arrest us tomorrow? Do you think he would arrest the editor of the New York Times, the editor of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, do you think he would arrest them tomorrow and throw them in jail to silence them.”
Scarborough claimed anyone who didn’t believe Trump would take such actions was “just lying to yourself.”
Trump called Stone’s sentence of seven to nine years a “miscarriage of justice.” When the Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that they would be reconsidering the sentencing, three prosecutors tied to Robert Mueller’s investigation quit the case, including two who resigned as U.S. attorneys. Trump also withdrew the nomination of U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu for a Treasury Department post after she led the case against Stone.
Trump claimed that he did not speak to Barr or other officials in the department about Stone’s case, despite the changes on Tuesday.
Outside the Stone controversy, Trump has also been criticized for reassigning Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his twin brother from their posts on the National Security Council and reassigning them to posts within the Pentagon. On the same day, Trump also announced he was pulling Gordon Sondland from his position as U.S. ambassador to the European Union. Both Vindman and Sondland testified in the House impeachment hearings.
