The set of “Morning Joe” was outraged Monday over a joke from a White House aide about Sen. John McCain’s brain cancer that surfaced last week.
“They’re rotten to the core,” said show co-host Mika Brzezinski of members of the Trump administration who refused to condemn the remarks. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Morning Joe” particularly took issue with White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp over her initial reaction that she “stood with” Kelly Sadler, the aide who made the joke about McCain.
“Weren’t they the ones that rushed out of the White House Correspondents Dinner because they were so offended by the jokes,” said Scarborough referencing Schlapp and her husband Matt’s decision to leave the dinner early because of their outrage over Michelle Wolf’s monologue.
“So they rushed out — of course get in their limousine and go straight to an afterparty. I think it was an MSNBC afterparty,” said Scarborough.
Jon Meacham warned that history would not be kind to the Trump administration.
“These people are on the wrong side of history and they’re on the wrong side of decency,” he said. “History is going to be very harsh here. The presidents we remember and want to commemorate and emulate are the ones who reach beyond and represent all of us. Not just this small base who stand by people who insult people like John McCain.”
On Thursday, The Hill first broke the story of Sadler joking that McCain’s objections to CIA Director nominee Gina Haspel didn’t matter because he was “dying anyway.” The “Morning Joe” segment represents the fourth day of coverage of the incident.
President Trump is long known to have a frosty relationship with McCain, who voted against his effort to repeal Obamacare last summer. During the Republican primary, Trump attacked McCain’s war record, telling pollster Frank Luntz at an event in Iowa that McCain was only a war hero because he was captured and that he liked “people who weren’t captured.”