MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough went on a lengthy tirade Friday against the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal editorial board for characterizing Bob Woodward’s new book as a “non-revelation.”
The Morning Joe host focused on a column published on Thursday which chastised Democrats for using the recordings of the president’s conversations with the Watergate sleuth to say President Trump is “responsible” for the deaths of the nearly 200,000 people who have died from COVID-19, “which is contemptible even by today’s political standards.”
Scarborough, who is a former Republican congressman, began by asking if the editorial board felt the president was “responsible” for a fraction of the deaths.
“Maybe he only killed 4,000 out of 190,000? You think that’s probably pretty safe to say that him lying about this pandemic, him lying about this virus, him underplaying the risk so much so that people would run into stores, at Walmart, and tear down displays that had masks on it, that people would run around saying this was a hoax — he would! He called it a Democratic hoax! A month after he told Woodward it was really bad stuff,” Scarborough added. “What do you think, Wall Street Journal editorial page?”
Scarborough noted that he’s a frequent reader of the editorial page and even relied on them while running for Congress in the 1990s, and he issued a warning to them.
“I’ve been reading you, Wall Street Journal editorial page, my entire adult life,” he said. “You gave me the crib notes basically when I was running for Congress in 1994. I’d read your page, and I’d go out and campaign. I didn’t listen to what the [National Republican Congressional Committee] sent me because I found that you always wrote it better, more concisely, and gave me a better argument for what conservatism was in 1994, but it sure as hell is not right now. But I’d be careful, and I say this as a longtime listener, first-time caller, I’d be careful because history in a couple of months is going to be harsh.”
The president spoke with Woodward more than a dozen times for the journalist’s book, Rage, which will be released next week. Tapes of their conversations were published this week, including audio of Trump talking about downplaying the severity of coronavirus in the early days of the pandemic.
