The hosts of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” condemned House Republicans’ “blatantly political” Thursday deposition of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and warned that it is “only backfiring” on President Trump’s political party.
“When a source told me they were talking about UFOs and Pizzagate, I actually had to double check. Really? Is that actually how they’re spending their time here?” “Way Too Early” host Ali Vitali told “Morning Joe” viewers Friday, citing talking points from Clinton’s deposition. “It felt so blatantly political, and I felt like the politics were very much on display yesterday with Secretary Clinton.”
“What [Republicans have] done here has opened the door for some very uncomfortable questions to be asked in a similar deposition down the road to [Commerce] Secretary [Howard] Lutnick, perhaps even to President Trump, let’s say [if] the Democrats take control of the House this fall,” “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire argued. “If this was meant to be a statement to distract from what’s happened with President Trump and his team and Epstein, it seems to be, like other efforts earlier this year, only backfiring for Republicans.”
Bloomberg White House Correspondent and occasional “Morning Joe” panelist Jeff Mason said Clinton’s deposition did the exact opposite of what Trump and many of his Republican allies want right now. “At a time in the year when the midterm elections are just a few months away and his poll numbers are down, what does the White House want him and Republicans to be talking about? Not Jeffrey Epstein,” Mason explained.
“What are they doing? They’re talking about Jeffrey Epstein, and they’re giving a platform to somebody who knows how to play them and Secretary Clinton did that yesterday,” the Bloomberg correspondent concluded. You can watch the full “Morning Joe” segment yourself below.
“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough expressed his frustration and confusion again with the Trump administration’s “botched” release of the Epstein Files. “As any great trial lawyer will tell you, you let the jury know the information. You give them the bad news up front,” Scarborough noted. “If you give the jury the opportunity to think the worst, they will think the worst of your client.”
He went on to cite reports that the Department of Justice excluded documents from its Epstein Files release regarding FBI interviews with a woman who accused President Trump of heinous misconduct when she was a teen. “If that is not true, you want to get that out. Even if it is true, it has to get out because, since the information is out there, a cover-up only makes the jury — in this case, voters — think the absolute worst,” Scarborough argued.
“This is why, again, what the Justice Department has been doing has been so stupid, it’s been so self-defeating and it has only kept this story alive,” Scarborough concluded. “They are doing damage to Donald Trump’s reputation because they have so badly mishandled this.”
“It’s just too much,” co-host Mika Brzezinski said. “The damage is done.”
