'Deadly silence': Morning Joe warns Trump he's made 'huge mistake' accepting debate rules
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough warned Donald Trump against appearing alongside President Joe Biden on the debate stage, where he said his weaknesses and personality flaws will be exposed.
The former president has made Biden's age a core issue in the presidential campaign, but the "Morning Joe" host said the slightly younger Trump actually showed more signs of impairment — and he suspects that his campaign is aware of that and not too eager to highlight the side-by-side comparison.
"They don't want the contrast because Donald Trump is weak, failing and miserable," Scarborough said. "You don't think Suzy Wiles, Chris [LaCivita] and the smart people on his campaign don't understand how often this guy loses his train of thought? Forgets who he is running against, thinks Jimmy Connors, the tennis pro from '74 to '77, also brokered the Camp David Accords? They know."
Biden and Trump have agreed to debate June 27 and September 10, but there will be no studio audience, as there has been since the traditional televised format originated in 1976. Co-host Mika Brzezinski predicted the former president would try to overwhelm his Democratic opponent with insults, falsehoods and bluster.
"You laugh, but sometimes that throws people off," Brzezinski said to a smirking Scarborough. "You never know."
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Scarborough disagreed, saying those antics would fall flat in the format proposed by Biden and accepted by Trump.
"Mika, I'm not laughing," he said. "I'm smiling at the fact that when Donald Trump tries all of those things that he does in front of his fat Elvis '77 crowd where they roar and say, 'Please throw a sweaty scarf in my direction,' it is going to be met with dead silence. The cameramen and women are going to be looking at each other [in confusion]."
Anyone who's watched a Trump rally from beginning to end would understand how disconnected he is from reality, Scarborough said, and that will become apparent when he takes the stage to debate Biden.
"I'm just saying, 90 minutes in a deadly silent studio audience with nothing but laughter coming from cameramen and camerawomen and stagehands from the really stupid things that he says, I think it is a huge mistake for him," Scarborough said.