MSNBC's Joe Scarborough blasted President Donald Trump's rude and belligerent debate performance.
The president continuously interrupted and insulted Joe Biden, as Fox News moderator Chris Wallace feebly tried to enforce the debate rules, and "Morning Joe" panelists agreed there would not likely be another debate.
"I don't know how you could go forward and have another debate like that, unless the commission somehow takes control and tries to get the moderator or someone to assert themselves in a different way," said contributor John Heilemann. "But I think it was an utter disgrace for the process, but also just a sign of desperation and a huge backfire moment for Donald Trump here. This has not worked to his advantage, and everything he did suggested just how weak and just how desperate he was in the face of this moment."
Host Joe Scarborough said Trump acted like that because he knew he could not win a fair debate, and it reminded him of his rambling 2016 interview with the Washington Post editorial board.
"I read the transcript and was shocked that Donald Trump went on and on talking about his hands -- these are the most beautiful hands -- and just went on and on," Scarborough said. "They're asking him questions about foreign policy, they're asking him questions about the economy, and I said to Mika [Brzezinksi] after reading the transcript, I said, look how stupid this guy is! Look how clueless this guy is! Mika looked at the transcript, and Mika, you immediately said, 'Oh no, he knows he can't answer their questions, he knows he can't -- he's not qualified to be president. All he's doing is stalling and wasting their time and distracting them with lunacy because he doesn't know the answers to any of those questions because he's so ignorant.'"
Scarborough said that was exactly what viewers saw during the debate, and Brzezinski agreed.
"He doesn't want Biden to answer the questions because he will have a cogent answer with historical context and maybe even some experience to go with it," she said, "and he didn't want that to happen, so he kept interrupting, he kept poking, he kept trying to get under his skin, going after his son. While Joe Biden was talking about Beau Biden, his son who served in Iraq, he just jumps in randomly about his other son and starts getting deeply personal and mean and cruel and acting, quite frankly, monstrous, for the entire debate."
Scarborough said neither candidate had anything to gain by taking part in another debate if Trump was going to behave so badly.
"I would have walked off the stage at certain times and said, until you can actually make sure that we abide by the rules, I'm not going to be a part of this charade," Scarborough said. "That said, voters overwhelmingly thought last night that Joe Biden won that debate. Donald Trump set himself on fire in front of 100 million people last night during that debate. He turned off women, he turned off independents, he turned off the same suburban voters that are turned off by Mitch McConnell trying to jam through a Supreme Court justice in the dying days of the Trump administration."
"So they have to debate whether they want to go out and let Donald Trump blow up himself again," he added. "I think they're probably deliberating over that this morning."
