“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough came after Donald Trump on Friday, responding to the former president’s recent comments claiming that the U.S. is the “greatest threat to Western civilization.” Scarborough maintained that it’s just the latest example of how Trump hates America.
“Donald Trump hated America before he became president of the United States,” Scarborough said.
As he often does, Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday to bemoan the state of the country and pander to his base of supporters, saying that “the greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably more than anything else ourselves.”
“It’s the abolition of our national borders. It’s the failure to police our own cities,” he wrote. “It’s the destruction of the rule of law from within. It’s the collapse of the nuclear family … It’s the Marxists who would have us become a godless nation worshiping at the altar of race and gender.”
“Blah blah blah,” Scarborough said in his response on Friday. “You know, it’s boring to me. What’s boring to me is the hatred for America, the hatred from America that you hear spewing from Donald Trump’s mouth.”
Looking back on Trump’s own presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2020 – and looking ahead to 2024 – Scarborough deduced that “Donald Trump hated America before he became president of the United States.”
“All Donald Trump does,” the co-host continued, “all other people do is they bash the United States of America. They attack the United States military, our men and women in the armed forces. They attack our intel community. They hate America by their own words. And if they hate it so much, why don’t they move to Russia? Russia will take them.”
And while “Morning Joe” is known for its own impassioned takes on modern day American politics and the players therein, Scarborough later added that he still maintains in his heart and messaging an optimism that’s hard to come by in many political circles.
“I’ve seen time and time again, doesn’t matter if it’s coming from a Democrat or a Republican: optimism sells. I go out and I talk to people and I tell them that we’re gonna win, that things are going in the right direction, that I really do believe that America’s greatest days are ahead of us, and I do. I really do! It gives them hope. You start talking that way, people start believing that way,” Scarborough said.
“Instead, we have politicians that run America into the ground,” he continued. “And I’ve spent my adult life listening to people whose party is not in power talking about how the world’s going to hell because their party’s not in the White House for those four years. And I’m sick and tired of it. When Trump was president, I said the same thing: We had a hell of a lot of challenges, but America’s greatest days were ahead. Optimism wins. It just does. Yesterday, the words ‘Trumpism doesn’t scale’ was used on this show. I wrote it down. It is true. Trumpism doesn’t scale. I’ll tell you what else doesn’t scale, and I’m dead serious, and Republicans need to hear me here – let those who have ears hear: Hating America doesn’t scale.
“Hope, optimism, faith in better days ahead scale. Believe it, then fight like hell for it, and then make it happen. That scales. This hating on America doesn’t.”
Watch a clip from the “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.