Morning Joe destroys Trump's vow to pardon Jan. 6 rioters: 'There is a sickness'
Donald Trump has vowed to pardon jailed Jan. 6 rioters as one of his first official acts if he's re-elected president, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough that should be considered an explicit threat of his authoritarian ambitions.
The former president declared in a Truth Social post that his first acts for a second term would be closing the border, "drill baby drill," and freeing supporters he called "hostages" who were prosecuted and convicted for storming the U.S. Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
"You know, I've been wondering, what do [his supporters] think when he says he is going to be a dictator from Day One?" Scarborough said. "What do they think when he says he can execute with SEAL Team Six, that he can get SEAL Team Six to execute his political opponents and not face any repercussions? What do they think when he says he'll terminate the Constitution, when he says he'll execute insufficiently loyal generals who aren't lackeys to him all the time? What do they think when he says all of these things that Vladimir Putin doesn't even say publicly?"
The "Morning Joe" host pointed to a series of interviews his NBC News colleague Vaughn Hillyard conducted with Trump supporters at his rallies who are itching for civil war.
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"Well, you listen to some of Vaughn's interviews, they think it's great," Scarborough said. "They say if Trump doesn't win this time, they think they should have a civil war... I saw a video, and I'm sure you saw it, too, of a Republican event in Missouri. They had Joe Biden [in effigy], people went up kicking Joe Biden. I'm telling you, in all my lifetime, in all my lifetime, if that ever happened at any Republican event, if one person even talked about doing that, they would be surrounded, and they would be removed and the image of the president would be removed. I just -- again, there is a sickness. People say, yeah, we're going to violently take over state legislatures, violently take over the Congress, violently take over whatever we have to take over if we don't win the election."
Co-host Willie Geist pointed out they had already attempted to do that once.
"Even a few years ago, you could have perhaps rolled your eyes at that a little bit as idle talk or threats," Geist said. "We saw it happen on Jan. 6, a violent attack on the United States Capitol. Of course, it can happen already. Of course, we're hearing talk if Donald Trump loses, we're going to hear and see exactly the kind of things you described there. But the voters who go to the rallies, they go along for the ride. They laugh at the stuff they've been laughing at for the last eight years. They don't mind his authoritarianism tendencies, perhaps they like it. The question, I guess, is how many of those people are still there with him, and how many people have seen enough of the show? We'll find out in November."
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