In the first hour of “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, host Joe Scarborough found some time for a bit of sermonizing.
In an impromptu monologue, the MSNBC host said he didn’t understand what “fever” had gripped the members of the Republican Party and why it had embraced Donald Trump — whom he called “the antithesis of just about every single thing that Jesus Christ said on the Sermon on the Mount.”
“You look in Matthew and go through the Beatitudes, every single Beatitude, you go through Jesus’ teaching, what he says he wants people to be,” Scarborough said.
“Go read it. None of us are perfect, but he goes out of his way, it seems, to thumb his nose at all conventions, including the basics of the Beatitudes.”
Joe Scarborough: “Donald Trump is the antithesis of just about every single thing that Jesus Christ said on the Sermon on the Mount” pic.twitter.com/teUITVOxSq
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) October 17, 2017
The moment came in response to National Character Counts Week — which in case you are wondering — is this week.
“Few things are more important than cultivating strong character in all our citizen,” read an official White House proclamation.
But Scarborough was more amused than impressed. “It is a joke, and people will look back and wonder, ‘What the hell happened, what fever gripped conservatives, what fever gripped the Republican Party, and I will say it what fever gripped my own people — the people I grew up with, the people who helped me get elected,” said Scarborough, who once represented Florida’s northwest panhandle in Congress as a Republican.
“The evangelicals that go to Values Voter Summits, or whatever they call it, and give Steve Bannon a standing ovation, welcome Donald Trump as a conquering hero?’” he said.