Every morning, Morning Joe features Joe Scarborough bemoaning how Congress has changed so much since when he was there. You know, during the very civil reign of Newt Gingrich! But I digress.
"We showed pictures of quotes from people who have been friends of mine for 25 years saying absolutely egregious things about why AR-15s are needed to kill varmints and prairie dogs and feral pigs and raccoons," he said to Claire McCaskill.
"And, you know, two things can be true at once, I guess. You can know them, you can like them, you can still be shocked by the things they say and the decisions they make. But I'm wondering as you now see January 6th and we've had quite some time to take it on board and try to process it, what do you think about somebody like Marco Rubio, who -- or somebody like Lindsey Graham or people that you have worked with -- I'm sure you had kind words with and could tell us nice things about them.
"But, you know, Marco Rubio, when children are blown away in a second grade, third grade class, he uses that as an excuse to attack the NBA and their position on China. He doesn't talk about guns. When January 6th comes up, he tries to undermine this, by talking about an ex-tv producer for ABC who may be affiliated with this. And Claire, I'm just sitting here thinking, when I was up there, this -- this is a pretty open and closed case.
"Republicans would gather together and Democrats could gather together. And they would say, this is B.S., except, they wouldn't say B.S. And we're going to chase down these clowns. We're going to throw them in jail. And we're going to make sure that never happens again. So just, on a personal level, Claire, tell us, how could your friends, how could your former colleagues be standing in the way of this and actually trying to actively undermine the pursuit of truth to figure out who tried to overturn a presidential election?"
(My goodness, help me to my fainting couch! I have the vapors! HOW COULD THIS BE?)
"The moment this thing turned, Joe, was the moment that the Republicans came out against a bipartisan commission, that was negotiated by a Republican, the purview of it, the ability to subpoena, all of it. It was going to have to be bipartisan," McCaskill said.
"When they decided that they didn't want anything that really had that kind of credibility, that's the moment they all folded. And they folded to the political pressure and power of Donald Trump and his followers. Now, last night wasn't the best of nights for Donald Trump. He didn't actually win very many places last night. Institutional Republicans won over his whack-a-doodle candidates.
"So maybe that might have more impact on my former colleagues than anything we can say or do. And that is, can Donald Trump's grip, iron-fisted grip on the Republican party finally begin to loosen somewhat? I don't know."
Joe, we already KNOW who tried to undermine the election -- and you do, too. Don't play dumb. Republicans calculated that if a bipartisan committee pointed the finger at Trump, why, that would stain them all as his enablers! So we're playing "see no evil."
And the thing is, it doesn't matter that Trump's candidates lost. Because here comes his replacement, the smarter true believer Version 2.0- Ron DeSantis. The work Trump and his minions did to destroy democracy will live on long after he's gone.
