A media critic for the New York Observer -- a paper currently owned by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump -- laid into MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Friday and did not pull any punches.
In a column titled Don't you dare disagree with Scarborough on MSNBC, Joel Lapointe lambasted the former Republican congressman and decried the Morning Joe host's bullying manner with guests who don't agree with him unconditionally.
Pointing to a verbal dressing-down Scarborough dealt out to former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, Lapointe said, "It was the kind of scolding a parent would speak to an unruly child, a tone very much in character for Scarborough, who frequently interrupts guests and recites rambling questions in gusts of words of up to 90 seconds."
In a segment that aired on Tuesday's Morning Joe, author Anand Giridharadas discussed the fear and uneasiness many immigrants to the U.S. are feeling in the wake of Trump's victory in the Electoral College.
“My parents have been here since the late ‘70s,” Giridharadas said. “It was the first Thanksgiving I think we’ve celebrated with a measure of fear about the year to come. Physical fear. Fear about what will happen to people who look like us and people of many other kinds in this country.”
“We now have a President-elect who is actively calling into question the right of people who are already American to remain American,” he continued.
Scarborough told Giridharadas that he's being "hysterical" and said, "That fear has been over-represented in these papers," as he waved a stack of newspapers.
“We don’t need to jump out of windows with our hair on fire,” Scarborough said. “You’re not being rational.”
“I’m not being rational for taking the President-elect of the United States at his word?” asked Giridharadas.
“Let me finish,” barked Scarborough. “Because you know what I’m going to say and you don’t want me to say it because you know I’m right. Hitler is not coming back...Be careful not to spread fear if it’s not rationally based.”
Lapointe said, "On his best days, Scarborough is bellicose and disdainful of others. On days like this, he seems like a younger version of Bill O’Reilly, very much a Trump Buddy, haughty with a cruel edge, talking down to a man of color in much the tone Trump used to tell Hispanic anchor Jorge Ramos to 'Go back to Univision.'”
"Since Trump’s election, both Scarborough and [co-host Mika] Brzezinski have been trading on their friendship with Trump and his family for leaks about appointments to the new administration," said Lapointe. "Their tone is increasingly right-wing and reactionary -- even from Brzezinski, who should know better."
