Morning Joe stunned by 'chaotic' Trump presser: 'Everybody's scared to death by what they saw'

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were stunned -- and terrified -- by what they saw Thursday during President Donald Trump's bizarre and vapid news conference

“That would have been a really funny hour or so of television if he weren’t president of the United States," Scarborough said. “It was one of the most chaotic, rambling press conferences anybody has ever seen.”

Scarborough said the president seemed "addicted to chaos," but he marveled at Trump's most ardent supporters -- who liked what they saw during the 77-minute spectacle.

“They were laughing, and they weren’t laughing at Donald Trump -- they were laughing at the media,” Scarborough said.

The "Morning Joe" co-hosts and their panelists repeatedly expressed feelings of fear toward what the next four years would hold for the United States and the world.

“Everybody I talked to on (Capitol) Hill, including a lot of Republican senators and congressmen, were scared to death by what they saw, and more than one said, ‘This just isn’t going to last long because he just doesn’t have control of reality,'” Scarborough said.

Mike Barnicle, the veteran journalist and MSNBC contributor, said "the No. 1 story is the stability of the president of the United States."

"The first 35 minutes of that press conference was watching a president of the United States who has lost a grip on reality," Barnicle said. "It was as if he performed for himself because he needed to perform like that because he needed to convince himself he was president.”

The co-hosts agreed the Trump administration seemed to be "suspended from reality."

"He throws out shiny objects and lies to distract us," Brzezinski said.

Scarborough noted that Rush Limbaugh praised Trump's performance during the news conference and, as if one cue, the famously voracious television consumer tweeted about it just moments later.

.@JoeNBC on Trump’s press conference: One of the most chaotic, rambling press conferences anybody has ever seen https://t.co/k32N2yzdzV

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) February 17, 2017