Morning Joe rips McConnell and Ryan for mocking Trump in private -- and kissing his ass in public

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped congressional Republicans for privately questioning President Donald Trump's fitness for office, while publicly lavishing him with praise.

The "Morning Joe" host spent the first half hour of Thursday's program bashing Vice President Mike Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan for sucking up to the president in the most "embarrassing" way after GOP lawmakers passed the tax bill.

"Donald Trump is trying to build a personality cult," Scarborough said, before tossing a question to MSNBC's Capitol Hill correspondent. "Have you ever seen, or have any of your colleagues ever seen, such a display of cravenness of members of Congress who are duly elect and equal to the president in power being so obsequeous to the president?"

Reporter Kasie Hunt said she'd never seen such a display, and she said their praise contradicted the serious concerns they've raised with her off the record.

"I was just so struck by the disparity between what they were saying in public and what we hear all the time behind the scenes in private about kind of the general exhaustion and unpredictability of working with this administration," Hunt said.

Scarborough hears the same private concerns from lawmakers, and he called them out for praising Trump's "exquisite" leadership in front of the president.

"What is so striking, again, is if you look at what these members say behind closed doors, saying he is not mentally fit, saying that he is a horrific president, that he's got terrible leadership skills," Scarborough said.

Scarborough called out McConnell, Ryan and other GOP lawmakers who debased themselves praising Trump onstage Wednesday as the same critics who question Trump's mental stability and competence.

"The very people on the stage saying those things are the ones quietly behind the scenes telling every reporter that will listen to them how embarrassed they are to be associated with him -- every one of them," he said. "They roll their eyes, they mock him, they're humiliated to be associated with that man. Then they go out and get behind the microphone and say that."