MSNBC's Morning Joe thinks Nunberg’s TV meltdown is a ‘smokescreen’: ‘Trump and Roger Stone would be proud’

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg's on-air meltdown Monday on various cable news programs is a very bad sign for the president.

The "Morning Joe" host said the shocking outbursts by Nunberg -- who was fired twice by Trump, first in February 2014 and then in August 2015 -- and another crazed morning tweet from President Donald Trump showed how high the special counsel had ramped up pressure.

"There's so much evidence out there that again, a tweet like Donald Trump's really does -- it just seems to prove what (former CIA director John) Brennan said, and that is how nervous he is becoming with where this (Robert) Mueller investigation is going," Scarborough said.

Co-host Willie Geist agreed, saying the president's panicked tweets showed how isolated and alone as the investigation closed in.

"We know the president watches a lot of cable news, yesterday could not have been comforting," Geist said. "You can try to say he was a guy that he fired, which is true in august of 2015, but the fact is Sam Nunberg provided a window into Bob Mueller's investigation. You have to take some of what he said with a grain of salt, but there is no question that President Trump is worried about what's happening and he's going to build up whatever smokescreen he can find to distract people from it."

Scarborough suspected, however, that Nunberg's bizarre, and possibly alcohol-fueled, outburst was part of a setup to protect his political mentor and "surrogate father," Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, and his old boss.

"Sam Nunberg, a former campaign guy who's now in the focus of the special prosecutor, panicking, literally having a nervous, what appeared to be a nervous breakdown, on national TV on as many outlets as possible," Scarborough said. "I'm sure both Donald Trump and Roger Stone would have been very proud of him."

Scarborough pointed back to communications director Hope Hicks, who abruptly resigned the day after testifying for hours before the House Intelligence Committee, and Trump's irrational reaction to the departure of his "emotional support" in the White House.

"After he hears she's going to depart, him losing it and deciding he's going to start a trade war," Scarborough said. "Kind of like kicking a dog because you're an angry child. It seems like, again, the wheels are starting to come off."