“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough stopped by “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Wednesday night, where he explained that President Trump will take things only as far as the American people let him.
“What’s been different this year is everybody’s bowed down to him,” Scarborough told Jimmy Kimmel. “My issue is more with the people that have capitulated to him and haven’t pushed back.” He also referenced a recent New York Times headline, which asked, “Where’s Donald Trump Going to Take Us?”
“This is not his government! He’s got one-third of it. The question is: How far are we going to let him?” Scarborough argued. “Madisonian Democracy is centered on checks and balances, and when you have the first branch of government scared to check and balance and the third branch of government scared to check and balance, things are going to become pretty unbalanced pretty quickly.”
The “Morning Joe” host went on to note that there are “a million different checks and balances” in a “million different places,” and pointed to the actions of the people of Minnesota this month as proof of that point. “I think, this past week especially, I think things have changed. There’s been a massive shift,” Scarborough said. “I think the president understands it. I think people inside the White House understand it.”
“I think there’s a real recognition that, again, the people of Minnesota, the American people, have pushed back,” he added. “I think they’re going to have to respond to that.”
The MS NOW host also reiterated during his ABC appearance that he has known Trump for over 20 years. In response, Kimmel asked the former Florida Republican congressman when the last time was he spoke to the president.
“I called him after he announced that he had called Tim Walz and the mayor of Minneapolis,” Scarborough revealed. “I said, ‘If you don’t mind, off the record, tell me about the call.’ And he told me about the call. I said, ‘You know, Mr. President, I think it’s a good thing for Americans to see you and Tim Walz and the mayor of Minneapolis talking to each other. We need more of that.’”
When Kimmel asked Scarborough if he thinks Trump agrees with him, the “Morning Joe” host told him Trump always behaves differently in person than his critics think. “People would come up to me during his first term. They’d be like, ‘Oh, God. You’re not going to believe what I have to do,’” Scarborough recalled. “I’d go, ‘Why?’ They’d say, ‘I’m gonna have to go in and talk to Donald Trump.’”
Scarborough said he always responded to those people the same way: “I said, ‘Okay, let me tell you what’s going to happen. You’re going to go in there. He’s not going to be the guy you see on TV. He’s going to charm you.’ You’re going to leave there and you’re going to go, ‘Boy, he’s a great guy!’”
“This is just what we imagine the devil would be like,” Kimmel responded, to laughter from both Scarborough and his in-studio audience.
