MSNBC's Morning Joe and Mika recoil from Trump's 'stupid' performance in town hall

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough brutally panned President Donald Trump's performance in a town hall.

The president took part in a public discussion broadcast live on ABC, and the "Morning Joe" host said Trump surpassed the widely mocked 1992 vice presidential debate performance of Adm. James Stockdale, who was Ross Perot's running mate.

"It's remarkable that there are actually people in the Trump White House who are looking forward to the debates, because this man last night made Adm. Stockdale look like Lincoln at Gettysburg," Scarborough said. "It's very clear, even four years into the job, he doesn't understand the issues, he doesn't know the issues, and 200,000 dead Americans into the coronavirus, he's still stumbling around with no strategy, and he actually -- talk about a Freudian slip, he comes out and talks about herd mentality, then gets to herd-approved, or whatever he said."

The president conflated herd immunity with herd mentality, which he said would cause the deadly coronavirus to "disappear," and Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski were astonished by his lack of understanding of the worst crisis he's faced.

"This is incredible," Brzezinski said, "because it's not that he's stupid -- he is -- but it's that he doesn't care that 2 to 3 million people may die, when he talks about herd immunity but doesn't even get the phrase right this is someone who doesn't care."

Trump insisted to moderator that the virus would just go away, and soon, although more than 1,000 are dying every day in the U.S.

"Good god," Brzezinski said, watching video from the town hall.

"Donald Trump last night did something quite extraordinary," Scarborough said. "He admitted out loud that after 200,000 dead Americans, he has now reverted back to where the British started, where Boris Johnson's people started, talking about herd immunity, and then immediately were rushed off of that when they figured out how many dead Brits there would be Donald Trump has stumbled back onto it."

"Look at Wisconsin and you go into those numbers," he added, "and yes, law and order is very important there, but coronavirus is the key issue, and you have some older people in Wisconsin who are very concerned that Donald Trump still doesn't know what he's doing when it comes to this once-in-a-century pandemic."