Joe Scarborough on Friday accused Donald Trump of taking insensitivity to a new level ― and that’s saying something. (Watch the video below.)
Scarborough and other hosts on “Morning Joe” were aghast at Trump describing imprisoned Jan. 6 rioters as “hostages” at a Houston rally the day before.
Willie Geist called the former president’s remarks “repulsive,” citing the attacks on police and desecration of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, siege to overturn a fair election.
Scarborough searched for an even deeper rebuke, and found it in the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas during a massacre that has triggered a war. Hundreds of captives, including some Americans, are now believed to be held by militants in Gaza as tensions and deaths mount amid an Israeli offensive.
“How deeply offensive that Donald Trump has now moved from calling these people, these thugs, ‘political prisoners’ to now comparing them to Jews who were ripped out of their homes,” Scarborough said.
“Jews ripped out of their homes on the 7th [of October], beaten up, bludgeoned, grandmothers thrown on the back of pickup trucks and taken underground by Hamas terrorists,” Scarborough went on, per Mediaite. “And they’re the hostages.”
Scarborough continued his takedown as he addressed another colleague.
“The world is talking about the hostages, Jonathan Lemire, and Donald Trump uses this time to compare those thugs that were beating up police officers with American flags, to compare them to Jews who were ripped from their homes, raped, beaten, so many killed, but also so many taken to underground tunnels by a terrorist organization,” Scarborough said.
“Trump’s comments would be deeply offensive at any time, but particularly now, considering the uncertain fate of those hostages in Gaza at this moment,” Lemire replied.