April 15, 2020

Joe Scarborough and Rev. Al Sharpton noted that the same people urging the country to get back to work aren't exactly doing it themselves.

"It's real interesting, Reverend Al, some talking heads, let's reopen the company right now. Editorials talking, oh, let's open the economy," Scarborough said.

"Get the economy open as fast as possible. Liberals want to keep it closed. Actually, it's the medical providers, the medical people want to keep it closed until it's safe to reopen, and you have all of these people that are now, you know, sort of parroting Larry Kudlow's line: 'People need to get back to work and if they don't want to get back to work it's because they don't like working.'

"I don't see these pro-Trump media outlets rushing their people back to work. And they're not going to, because they know it's not safe. They don't want their people to die. They don't want to die. And yet they continue to say these reckless, irresponsible things in the press about quickly reopening the government. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, you know, blamed the liberal media for wanting -- are you kidding me? Is the Wall Street Journal editorial staff rushing in to work today? To their office? No, they're not."

"None of the Trumpsters, or the big supporters of the president that are saying we need to get back to work, they're not rushing back to work," Rev. Al said.

"Many of them are at home with masks and gloves on, hiding under the bed while they're trying to tell everybody else to go back to work, and I think that the president, we saw demonstrated his fragile ego, because some of the governors stepped forward and started doing what they're supposed to do: governing. He couldn't stand for anyone else to take center stage, so he rushes out there and part of it was his ego. The other part was a distraction.

He went on to agree with Scarborough that Trump's strategy is to keep distracting, so people don't notice all the people who are dying.

"I think Andrew Cuomo, our governor, no, was brilliant to say 'I'm not going to give you a fight. I'm not going to give you a distraction. When I was a youngster, I was very much a fan of Muhammad Ali, who I did get to know, and he had a strategy called rope-a-dope. That's what Andrew Cuomo did to President Trump. He just leaned back and said, 'You punch yourself out. I'm not going to exert any energy. I'm going to let you punch yourself out.'

"And that's what we're seeing, a rope-a-dope at the White House."

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