The hosts of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” called the mass turnout for this past weekend’s No Kings protests a “direct rebuke” of President Trump‘s second term, telling viewers, “There is something happening here.”
“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski noted that over 8 million Americans reportedly participated in the latest No Kings protests. That statistic prompted co-host Joe Scarborough to observe, “There is something happening here, when you have so many people going out to protest.” The “Morning Joe” host went on to note that the protests included — and were praised by — not just Independents and Democrats, but also some Republicans as well.
“Republicans that I’ve known my whole life calling the report on these No Kings rallies and how big they’ve gotten,” Scarborough said. “And, quite frankly, how heartened they were to see that people who were fellow conservatives with them through the Reagan administration, through the Bush administration, that conservatives, real conservatives, are joining Independents and Democrats and liberals and progressives to go out and say, ‘Hey, we may not agree on a ton of things, but we do agree that, in America, there are no kings.’”
Despite the widespread protests to his administration’s actions and policies, Monday’s “Morning Joe” panelists also observed how Trump himself does not seem worried about this year’s midterm elections.
“He doesn’t really sit there and internalize the fact that the backlash that is building as of today is a direct rebuke of his performance,” The Dispatch senior writer David Drucker said of the president. “It’s about him and the things that he’s doing and that people aren’t happy.”
Drucker said Trump is, notably, aware of the potential for his party’s federal control to slacken this coming fall, and that might explain some of his recent actions.
“That’s why what you’ve seen from him is this obsession with the SAVE America Act, which would impose national voting standards,” the “Morning Joe” panelist explained. “He’s telling Republicans, ‘These midterms could be really bad. You need to pass this or we’re really going to be in big trouble.’ So he understands it, but he understands it in a bizarre sort of way that isn’t the way things work.”
The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius echoed Drucker’s thoughts, telling viewers that Democrats are concerned about Trump’s plan. “There is growing concern among Democrats,” he said. “This is a time when the president’s popularity is down. But Trump and people around him have detailed plans for trying to, in effect, federalize the midterm elections to impose rules that might make it harder for people to vote.”
“There’s a strategy that’s been developing really since President Trump was elected last year to think about election rules,” Ignatius continued. “For Democrats that I talk to, as they think about November and the likelihood that voters will turn out in large numbers against Republicans, [there is] a fear that there’ll be steps taken that would reduce that Democratic vote.”
