'Charlottesville hung over this race': Morning Joe blames GOP loss on Trump reaction to racist rally

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said President Donald Trump's moral equivocation after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville could end up being his true historical legacy.

The "Morning Joe" host said the president's widely condemned reaction to that racist rally, which left one counter-protester dead, was ultimately to blame for the Republican Party's losses Tuesday in Virginia.

"I just think Charlottesville, also, not only hung over this race, but I think just like the Oklahoma City bombing was a turning point in Bill Clinton's presidency, I'm not so sure that Charlottesville is not a moment that historians are going to look back on and see Donald Trump's reaction to that and say, 'That is really when Republicans, independents (and) Democrats all became repulsed by what they were seeing happening in front of them, and how fascinating that, after that, the first big test of Trumpism came in that state."

Democrat Ralph Northam soundly defeated Republican Ed Gillespie, who defended Confederate monuments on the campaign trail and criticized NFL players protesting police violence -- and Scarborough said voters associate those issues with the increasingly unpopular Trump.

"A lot of Virginians said, 'Not in my state, and I also believe something else, too," Scarborough said. "I believe there are a lot of people, I know a lot of Democrats, a lot of moderates, a lot of progressives on every issue except this one, that don't want the Confederate monuments moved. But you know what? They also don't want a candidate using those monuments in the campaign, especially with the backdrop of Charlottesville."

Co-host Mika Brzezinski said voters are scared by what they see in the news, and they're worried the Trump presidency.

"Charlottesville, Sutherland Springs, Texas, days ago," Brzezinski said. "How can we not have that in your mind when you are thinking about the direction this country is taking?"