October 3, 2016

The news this morning is all bad for Donald Trump.

The candidate can't stay on message or keep his tweets or temper under control.

A conservative icon published an anti-Trump, pro-Hillary op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this morning. Yes! THAT Wall Street Journal! The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal!

Trump got zero percent in Detroit polling over the weekend. Zero.

And Trump is losing 42-36 in nationwide polling this morning.

But hey, he can still pull it off, right? Who would give us the answer we're looking for?

Mark "Great News for John McCain" Halperin, of course!

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Dorothy Rabinowitz, one of the great conservative Pulitzer prize-winning authors, writer for the "Wall Street Journal," you said you -- I read it, and I was just -

NICOLLE WALLACE: I read it out loud to my husband because I couldn't get his attention. He was doing things like feeding our small child. It was stunning.

SCARBOROUGH: It really was. So she writes this in the "Wall Street Journal." Hillary Hatred Derangement Syndrome. "Mrs. Clinton hasn't failed to provide cause for her own proclivities. Even so, such proclivities pale next to the occasion for cringing which would come with a Trump presidency. The end of the election is now in sight. Some among the anti-Hillary brigades have decided to stay home on election day rather than vote for Mrs. Clinton, but most Americans will soon make their choice. It will be Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton: experienced, forward-looking, determined, and imminently sane. Her election alone is what stands between the American nation and the reign of the most unstable, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House."

There's plenty of reason for Scarborough and company to be shocked at this op-ed. Rabinowitz is not only a writer for Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. She's the premiere "Bill Clinton is a rapist and cocaine smuggler" columnist from the 90's. For her to beg her readers to not stay home, to get out and vote for a Clinton, is a thing.

WALLACE: Stunning.

SCARBOROUGH: A conservative voice to say the least. Her whole life, she's been fighting the conservative cause.

HALPERIN: And the Clintons.

SCARBOROUGH: And the Clintons. What's your reaction?

ELISE JORDAN: My reaction is I wonder what Bill Kristol is going to do next.

Because I think he's been one of the loudest never-Trumpers. He's abstaining.

WALLACE: I think she puts the right question. This is a chicken or fish election. You can't be against him and not for the choice. And Jeb Bush has staked out this position. There are a lot of people who are sort of sitting this out. I think this is the choice.

SCARBOROUGH: If you believe as Bill Kristol and others have suggested, I don't know if Bill said this specifically, but if you believe Donald trump is so unstable that he could lead to a nuclear winter, I don't know that Gary Johnson is actually --

JORDAN: That's my conundrum. That's why I couldn't -- I can't support Gary Johnson after seeing how ill informed he is on foreign policy. From that op-ed, the key words I pull out, the quote imminently sane.

SCARBOROUGH: Imminently sane.

JORDAN: ...and about his psychological fitness for office. I think that really is the question that is coming down to among a lot of conservatives right now who are thinking seriously about this election choice. And how they probably can't vote for Trump.

MARK HALPERIN: It's just amazing that the republican nominee will get at a minimum 42 million votes. So therefore, broadly acceptable to tens of millions of Americans, yet people like Dorothy, Bill Kristol and others who care about the conservative movement do not like the Clintons, can't stomach voting for him.

SCARBOROUGH: I think they see far more danger in Donald Trump in the question I was asking earlier. Redefining what it means to be a Republican, a conservative, whereas if Hillary Clinton wins, well, we control the Senate and the House, and we're the loyal opposition for four years.

Loyal opposition? Just like you've been since 2011, Joe? Loyal opposition? Solyndra traitor's letter speaker's fee Benghazi secret lesbian baby parts Whitewater Sidney Blumenthal? Exactly how many Supreme Court nominees is your party going to block before even the teabaggers notice?

SCARBOROUGH: Morning Consult has a new poll out that shows actually a bit of a movement. Hillary Clinton at 42%. Donald Trump down at 36%. Gary Johnson at 9%, who are those 9%? and Jill Stein at 2%. So there's a post-election poll from Politico and Morning Consult. We'll talk about that when we come back. But six points, that's pretty significant in a four-way race.

HALPERIN: That's the good news for her. The bad news for her, she's at 42%. Which is not enough to win. ...

SCARBOROUGH: The Republican nominee, polling at 36%....

Funny how 42% is not enough to win when you don't ever ever ever look at the Electoral College. And Joe Scarborough? You sound wistful at the end. Like you had nothing to do with where the Republican Party is right this minute. Adorable!

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