Morning Joe fears a rocketship-flying billionaire would use Trump's playbook if Jan. 6 riot goes unpunished

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough warned that some rocketship-flying billionaire would take over the country using Donald Trump's playbook if the former president and his allies weren't punished for fomenting insurrection.

The House select panel issued another round of subpoenas for Trump's inner circle, but the "Morning Joe" host said the twice-impeached one-term president and his GOP allies were still challenging congressional authority -- and he said that posed a grave threat to democracy.

"This is a message to people from both parties in the future, [that] a billionaire, perhaps, who's an independent in the future, there's a lack of imagination here by right-wingers, by Republicans, by some people who call themselves conservative who just think this is Democrats vs. Republicans," Scarborough said. "This is a Madisonian democracy issue, a challenge to our democracy, a challenge to checks and balances, and I swear to God, 10-15 years from now, if people get away with this now, we're going to be seeing some independent billionaire, and in between flying, like, rocketships to Mars, going to decide to take over this country, and they're going to use these precedents against all of us -- Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives alike."

Every day that passes without the Department of Justice enforcing congressional authority puts the country at greater risk, Scarborough said.

"Either Congress has the power to subpoena or they don't," he said. "I am a little bit confused by exactly what Merrick Garland is doing when it comes to looking into the previous administrations. I don't want them to be persecuted because of their views. If you are committing sedition, it's okay to actually enforce laws. That's what I don't understand. You look at these people parading across these images and they're talking about, they have a war room to talk about how to subvert the United States Constitution and throw out an election. This is Belarus, these guys look like thugs from Belarus trying to distort democracy."

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