MSNBC's Morning Joe horrified that former 'joke' guest Trump now thinks he's 'Louis XIV'

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough brutally mocked President Donald for pardoning Rod Blagojevich, a former contestant on his "Celebrity Apprentice" reality show.

The "Morning Joe" host joked that he'd been pursuing justice for the disgraced Illinois governor, who was impeached and removed for trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat and later convicted in federal court of extortion against a children's hospital, among other charges.

"You and I have been fighting for years for justice," Scarborough joked with co-host Willie Geist. "It came yesterday, a decade. All he was trying to do is pass health insurance for children and 'Blago' gets thrown in jail. Maybe we can't joke about it, can we?"

Geist reflected on all that had happened since Trump, then an NBC reality TV star, was a frequent guest on their show.

"I did think about you yesterday when that happened because all the things a decade ago that were running gags, that were a joke to us," Geist said, "somehow have become true as former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich thrown in jail for among other things extorting a children's hospital, trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat, released from prison, had his sentence commuted by President Trump. Some would suggest because he was a contestant a decade ago on 'The Apprentice' and built a relationship that paid off for him as he arrived back home in Chicago just a few hours ago this morning. 'Blago,' Joe, in fact, is free."

Scarborough was horrified that those inside jokes had now come hideously true.

"Yeah, we joked about 'Blago' and the terrible -- I'm talking about a decade ago, we joked about Donald Trump back in like 2010, 2011," he said. "We called him America's Abraham Lincoln, and we would all have a big laugh about it because he'd come on and give his opinions and we'd, like, all laugh. Thinking how funny that was because, of course, he was the antithesis of America's Abraham Lincoln even then, and here we have now, obviously, this president who thinks that the state -- he is the state and the state is him. It's straight out of Louis XIV, and it's disturbing."