Morning Joe’s Surprisingly Positive Quadruple-Header

Morning Joe has traditonally been a reliable toer of the liberal line, an echo chamber championing the Democrat causes o’ the day, and denouncing virtually all things Republican. The guests are a liberal lineup stretching, as Macbeth would say, to the crack of doom. 

But ever since October 7th, there’s been a significant change. Unlike many in the liberal media, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Willie Geist have been resolute in denouncing the Hamas terror attacks of October 7th, and the threats to Jews in the United States, on campuses and elsewhere.

And so it was that on Thursday’s show, we were treated to the phenomenon of Morning Joe:

• Heartily agreeing with a member of Bibi Netanyahu’s cabinet on the need to eliminate Hamas, and the cabinet member expressing his thanks to the panel for its support.
• Denouncing antisemitism on campus, and mocking the hypocrisy of so-called social justice warriors who celebrate Hamas’s wanton killing of children and the elderly.
• And reacting, after a segment on Jewish women in South Florida buying and learning to use guns in response to the threats of antisemitism, calling their decisions as “necessary.”

Before those segments, the show conducted a lengthy interview with Ron DeSantis.  A wide range of issues, foreign and domestic, were discussed, with DeSantis displaying an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge.

While there was none of the warm embrace that would be reserved for a Democrat candidate, neither did Scarborough or others display any antagonism. And though DeSantis was pressed on the matter of a controversial remark he made on the campaign trail, the overall tone was respectful, with Scarborough even praising DeSantis for being forthright about his views. 

Scarborough began by teeing up DeSantis to criticize Trump’s failure to participate in GOP primary debates.

An abortion, Scarborough did say that he considered DeSantis’ support of a six-week ban to be “extreme.” But Scarborough then expressed his own support for a 15-16 week ban. Yes, Scarborough taking a position on abortion that would be anathema to the standard Democrat position of no limits on abortion up to the time of birth! 

And Scarborough actually praised DeSantis’ clarity on the issue, saying, “but, again, be that as it may, I know where you stand. You will tell Iowa voters and South Carolina voters where you stand.” He contrasted that with Donald Trump’s stand on the issue, which he depicted as varying over time and with the audience. 

The most challenging questioning came from Willie Geist, over DeSantis having said that, as president, he would “slit the throats” of federal bureaucrats. DeSantis declined to retract his statement, saying he believed people would understand that as a figure of speech. But while Geist pressed DeSantis on it, he did preface his questions by acknowledging that DeSantis “didn’t meant that literally.” Nor did Geist display any of the antagonistic grandstanding that might be expected from liberal-media hosts in such circumstances.

Next up was Ron Dermer, Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Dermer began by thanking the panel members for their “moral clarity” on the Israel-Hamas conflict. 

Willie Geist began the questioning by teeing up Dermer to condemn the notion of a cease fire that some have proposed. Geist noted that “the  spokesman for Hamas said in no uncertain terms that October 7th, on effect, is the beginning, and we’ll do it again and again and again, and just saying explicitly that the goal is the annihilation of Israel.”

Next was a segment on the wave of anti-Semitic attacks in the US. True, the show had on Morning Joe regular Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, which has been described as “a tax-exempt cadre of the national Democratic Party.” 

But Greenblatt was more than balanced by the presence of William Jacobson, a Cornell law professor and founder of Legal Insurrection [where I have blogged,] an organization that has championed the conservative cause on numerous issues, including that of Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College, and the attack on conservatives in academia. 

Once again, Willie Geist opened the question with this sympathetic take:

“You are a law professor at Cornell, a prestigious Ivy League university. How is it that so many schools over the last decade or so that have taken such great care for the safety, in many cases just protecting them from words or arguments they don’t like to hear, cannot take care with the physical safety of Jewish students?”

When Jacobson said that that anti-Jewish, anti-Israel attitudes in academia didn’t begin on October 7th, but have been in the making for 20 years, Scarborough responded:

“Professor, I’m so glad you said that, because it’s something I know I’ve been talking about on this network forb 20 years. Jewish students, sometimes at Ivy League schools, sometimes at USC, sometimes at state-run schools in the middle of America, Jewish students have been targeted for decades.” 

For that matter, while Greenblatt might normally have been expected to dispute Jacobson’s take on the issues, to the contrary, he could be seen nodding his head in agreement as Jacobson spoke, and then lauded Jacobson for getting “so much right.”

And finally, there was that segment described above, hosted by Sam Brock of NBC News. It featured Jewish women in South Florida, who in response to the outbreak of attacks on Jews are buying guns and learning to use them. 

Brock’s take was understanding and supportive, and included an interview of a gun shop owner and firearms instructor wearing a yarmulke! When’s the last time a liberal outlet offered a sympathetic interview of a gun shop owner?

And when Brock threw it back to the show, Scarborough said, of the decision of the women to buy guns and learn to use them: “they need to do that.” 

NewsBusters has been a consistent critic of Morning Joe in general, and Joe Scarborough in particular, for their slavishly pro-liberal-Democrat slant. But when it comes to the issues of Israel v. Hamas, and anti-Jewish/Israel bias in academia, Morning Joe has come down firmly on the side of the angels. Sure, the show will promptly return to its regularly-scheduled programming of Republican bashing. But for now, credit where credit is due.

Morning Joe giving respectful treatment to Ron DeSantis, agreeing with an Israeli government official, the head of the ADL and a law professor, about the need to eliminate Hamas and the threats to Jews on campus, and expressing support for the need of Jewish Americans to buy guns and learn to use them was sponsored in part by Sling, Consumer Cellular, 4Imprint, GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Arexvy, Liberty Mutual, and Go Daddy.   

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
11/2/23
7:40 am EDT

JOE SCARBOROUGH: So, we’ve been hearing, Governor, since you started your campaign, that you were going to collapse, and that things were like falling, and falling from the sky.

And, and yet, it’s Donald Trump who seems to be afraid to go to debates. This is the third debate, I guess, coming up next week in Miami that he is going to skip. Do you think any candidate that’s afraid to debate his opponents in a primary should be President of the United States?

RON DESANTIS: We are not going to win as Republicans, Joe, by adopting the strategy that Biden did, being in the basement during the 2020 campaign. That’s effectively what Donald Trump’s doing.

. . . 

SCARBOROUGH: I’ve been very clear: I think your six-week ban is, is extreme. I personally think that. I think it should be around 15, 16 weeks or so. 

But, again, be that as it may, I know where you stand. And you will tell Iowa voters and South Carolina voters where you stand. Donald Trump goes out and sometimes, weirdly enough, he starts attacking pro-life voters!

. . .

WILLIE GEIST: The FBI warns of domestic political violence again right now around the next election. So, when you say something like in Rye, New Hampshire at you want to, quote, slit the throats of federal bureaucrats, I know you didn’t mean that literally, but do you have any pause or any regret about using that rhetoric given our political climate?

DESANTIS: No, because I think people knew it was a figure of speech. I think people want to see big change to how Washington —

GEIST: Why not just say you’re going to fire them?

DESANTIS: Well, because you’re, you’re being colorful with some of the stuff, but you basically — you need to bring in serious accountability. I think back about some of the things with this government. The Afghanistan debacle—no one has been fired as a result of that.That was one of the biggest fiascos that we’ve ever had. You’ve had government fall on its face time and time again. And yet, there’s no accountability. So, we need an era of accountability.

Obviously, we’re going to do that within the…