“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough slammed Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying the president lied about his son meeting with a Russian attorney and the White House helped cover it up.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted emails that show he attempted to collude with a Russian attorney to get dirt on Hillary Clinton during his father’s campaign.
On his MSNBC morning show, Scarborough show read from a Saturday New York Times story that details how White House aides crafted a statement to defend the president’s son. The cited statement claimed the meeting was held to discuss a program about the adoption of Russian children and was approved by President Trump.
“It was a lie. That statement was a lie. It had to do with adoptions. They had to retract it immediately. They have to keep retracting statements. It got so bad yesterday that Donald Trump Jr. knew the Times was about to completely expose what he said was a lie,” Scarborough said. “This is part of, at least Saturday, was part of a White House cover up.”
Co-host Willie Geist agreed, “What you just said… was an attempt by the White House, signed off by the president of the United States, to cover up this story.”
Geist them pointed out that Trump Jr. “went away from that story completely” during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night.
“In retrospect, I probably would have done things a little differently,” Trump Jr. told Hannity. “Again, this is before the Russia mania — this is before they were building this up in the press.”
Scarborough also said that Trump Jr. lied again when he said that Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort weren’t aware of the situation because it’s now clear that they were forwarded the now-infamous email chain.
“He lied even about Jared Kushner not knowing,” Scarborough said.
Check out the video above.