MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” had something for everyone Wednesday morning, as President Trump was labeled both “not a fluke” and a “racist tin-pot dictator,” while the presidential election was described as “a gut-check moment” for Democrats.
Joe Scarborough praised Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign for warning that results might not come until well after Election Day and a “red mirage” would appear before all votes were counted, but MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle didn’t think the campaign got everything correct.
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“I think it’s a little bit closer than they wanted it to play out,” Barnicle said. “Clearly, no matter who wins this, no matter what the final result is, we are now living in a nation seeking an identity.”
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough (Photo by Jeff Neira/Walt Disney Television)
Barnicle added that there are a “huge, huge number of Americans” who clearly “resent being told what to do, how to live, how to feel about things” and hate the mainstream media.
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“The job of the next president of the United States, whoever it is, is to try to figure out how we can heel this nation,” Barnicle said. “The rupture in this country is incredibly wide.”
MSNBC political analyst Claire McCaskill stressed patience but agreed with Barnicle’s basic point.
“If the Democrats walk away from this election with the presidency, this is a gut-check moment. This is a moment to think about how we communicate with America, what we are saying to America,” McCaskill said.
“If it’s Donald Trump, he’s got a real problem ... if it’s Joe Biden, he’s got a real problem with that because he’s gonna have Mitch McConnell to deal with,” she added.
“We can’t go back to assuming, just because we think Donald Trump is an outlier in terms of what this country represents and who he is and how he behaves, that he is not connecting with a lot of American people in ways that, frankly, for a lot of us is hard to understand,” McCaskill continued. “But we need to get at it because we have to bring this nation together if we’re gonna remain a super power.”
Co-host Willie Giest then declared, “He’s not a fluke. We can officially say that now. Donald Trump is not a fluke. He is not an outlier. He’s not an aberration. Just look at the vote totals.”
Axios CEO Jim VandeHei also joined the program and admitted the mainstream media botched pre-Election Day predictions.
“I think all of us have to have a little bit of humility, and a lot of people in bubbles have to realize they don’t understand America,” VandeHei conceded.
However, MSNBC’s morning program wasn’t lacking its usual criticism of Trump, as John Heilemann called the president a “racist tin-pot dictator.”
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