Morning Joe Gushes at Biden Ukraine Visit: ‘Absolutely Stunning,’ Lincolnesque

Morning Joe was all aboard the Sycophant Express today, turning the gush meter to 11 as it unleashed a string of superlatives to praise Biden’s visit to Ukraine.

“Incredible, staggering, historic…absolutely stunning…extraordinary…incredibly moving.”

Joe Scarborough twice put Biden’s bravery in the same category as that of Lincoln visiting Union troops during the Civil War.

At one point, Scarborough emoted over Biden’s “excruciating 10-hour train trip.” You want an excruciating train trip, Joe? Try riding the NYC subway at rush hour, with the ever-present danger of being pushed onto the tracks by a maniac.

Note: Scarborough appears to have gotten his Biden-Lincoln analogy from Michael Beschloss, the historian and Biden fan boy, who made it during his appearance yesterday on Joy Reid’s show. But whereas Beschloss suggested that Biden was the first president since Lincoln to visit a war zone, as this Fox News article points out, President George W. Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq in 2003, eight months after the war began there.

The media called that a “presidential publicity stunt.”

Morning Joe turning its gush meter to 11 over Biden’s Ukraine visit was sponsored in part by Flonase, Sleep Number, Booking.com, and GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Shingrix.

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/21/23
6:01 am ET

WILLIE GEIST: Joe, just incredible, staggering, historic scenes yesterday of President Biden walking the streets of Kyiv.

. . . 

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Incredible. An incredible message that he sent, historic trip. David Ignatius, the first time since the Civil War, since Lincoln rode to see how Union troops were doing against the South, that a president rode into a war zone that his side was not controlling. 

. . . 

Joe Biden went, and sent just an absolutely stunning message to the world, but most importantly, to the people of Ukraine . . . An extraordinary trip, Gene. Again, unlike any president in our lifetime, any president in Biden’s lifetime, any president that [inaudible] since Abraham Lincoln. The guy takes, sneaks out of Washington, goes to the border, the abandoned train station, goes about 10 hours through the night. Gets there, and then, with the Russians knowing he’s there, takes the 10-hour train trip back!

EUGENE ROBINSON: Exactly!

SCARBOROUGH: Essentially daring Putin: go ahead, you know where I am. It’s a scene, again, where we have not, we have not witnessed in our lifetime–any president.

ROBINSON: I thought it was an incredibly moving day, and as you said, an incredible day in the Biden presidency. 

. . . 

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, Mika and I had a lot of discussions when we knew he was going to Poland. She goes, you think he’ll go to Kyiv? I go: I just don’t see —

JEN PSAKI: Yeah — seems hard.

SCARBOROUGH: — I just don’t see how anybody can make that 20-hour trip, exposed. He did it!

PSAKI: Yeah. 

. . . 

SCARBOROUGH: Biden goes in with a small staff, winding on an excruciating 10-hour train trip.