Morning Joe: Trump 'more and more explicit' in his plan 'to take American democracy down'

During a campaign rally in New Hampshire, GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump doubled down on his claim that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" and praised authoritarian figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin and "highly respected" Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Trump's liberal and progressive critics have been citing the remarks as additional proof of how dangerous a second Trump term could be for the U.S., but not all the criticism is coming from the left.

MSNBC host and Never Trump conservative Joe Scarborough slammed the comments as blatantly anti-democratic during a Monday morning broadcast.

The former GOP congressman told co-host Mika Brzezinski and a panel that included presidential historian Jonathan Meacham and fellow MSNBC hosts Al Sharpton and Jonathan Lemire, "It's getting more explicit. It's getting worse. I am still shocked by the clowns who claim to be media critics out there — just absolute clowns — that attack the media for reporting this. And some of them say: You just don't get it, you don't understand his connection with the audience. You just have to understand….. He's becoming more and more explicit on how he wants to take American democracy down."

Scarborough warned that Trump's "poisoning the blood" rhetoric recalls fascist dictators of the 1930s, including Adolf Hitler — and he didn't get any argument from Meacham.

Meacham argued, "We will never be able to say we were not warned…. There's no surprise attack here. This is explicit. This is clear…. If you don't think this is serious, I don't think you're even remotely paying attention."

The historian stressed that 2024 shouldn't be treated like a "conventional" presidential election, as the U.S. is under threat from a "fascistic force."

Meacham explained, "Many of us have applied conventional rules of gravity, conventional rules of analysis, conventional rules of politics to what is an unconventional force. It doesn't matter anymore whether Joe Biden had a good week or a bad week…. That's an analog way of envisioning and understanding our politics in what is an unfolding disaster.…. We are on trial here. The American people are on trial here."

READ MORE: Trump's 'poisoning the US blood' rhetoric echoes fascist propaganda of the 1930s: columnist

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