“Morning Joe” showed a montage of Republican lawmakers gushing over Donald Trump after their meeting with the former president on Capitol Hill Thursday, sparking sharp rebukes from the MSNBC hosts. (Watch the video below.)
“You could go to a Taylor Swift concert this summer and see less giddiness about her from teenage girls than we saw from Republicans on Capitol Hill about Donald Trump,” Willie Geist said. “These are grown men, supposed leaders, who just cannot be more excited to be in the same room to breathe the same oxygen as Donald Trump.”
The former president gave what’s been reported as a meandering pep talk to his acolytes in Congress. It was his first visit to Capitol Hill since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fomented with his lies about the 2020 election result.
But what’s not disputable is the fawning fealty of the GOP in Congress. In the short clip, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recalled that Trump “said complimentary things about all of us”; Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) breathlessly recounted how “electric” Trump was; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) praised him for being “so sweet” and “recognizing” her, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) enthused, “We were glad he was leading us.”
The collective sycophancy put “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough over the edge.
“In case you’re keeping score at home, they were saying this about a man convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault against a woman ― and this is who the Republicans are throwing their arms around,” he observed.