'It was very scary': Morning Joe panel highlights worst parts of Trump's NYC rally

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'It was very scary': Morning Joe panel highlights worst parts of Trump's NYC rally
An image of U.S. Presidential candidate and Former U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed before his rally at the Madison Square Garden in New York City, U.S., October 26, 2024. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski condemned the "unbelievably degrading" statements made by Donald Trump and his allies at a rally in New York City.

Speaker after speaker used crude, hateful and violent rhetoric at the packed event Sunday at Madison Square Garden, and "Morning Joe" panelists expressed their disgust — and rejected Trump campaign statements that tried to distance itself from some of the speakers.

Among the speakers was comedian Tony Hinchcliffe drew laughs by referring to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage."

"I think those comments that were made by the comedian really cut through about Puerto Rico," said Brzezinski. "So unbelievably degrading this event was to immigrants and to human beings who live in this country as free American citizens or legal immigrants."

The Rev. Al Sharpton pointed out that no following speakers, including the former president, criticized that or other offensive remarks.

"What was so striking to me is that this comedian said this early in the night and no one got up, including Donald Trump, and denounced what he said," Sharpton said.

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"There was a statement released later by the campaign. How do you let someone get on the stage and say something like that and no one refutes it, as people in the audience laughed and cheered about it? I got calls all night because we work very closely with Puerto Rican leadership. It reminded a lot of them of when Donald Trump was president and there was a real big storm that had destroyed part of Puerto Rico. He went down and threw towels at them, so it was consistent with what he said."

"But let's also go to what Donald Trump himself said last night, that some of the Black men groups that I've been debating about why they can't be with Trump, he said, 'I could be laying out in the beach with my white, white skin getting tanned,'" Sharpton added. "I mean, this is Donald Trump's mouth saying this.

"So I said to those on the fence, this is not a real racial signal? My pretty white, beautiful white, white skin? Donald Trump said this last night at his homecoming, so when people said that this was like reminiscent of the supremacist rally in 1939, the Nazis – I think that it lived up to that."

"It was very scary," Brzezinski added.

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Trump forces hand-picked Fed chief into brawl ‘whether he likes it or not’: report

President Donald Trump's renewed push against a Federal Reserve official has dropped his own hand-picked central bank chief into an awkward position.

Trump's new effort to remove Fed Gov. Lisa Cook puts Fed Chair Kevin Warsh on the hook to defend the institution's independence from the president who installed him, Politico reported Friday.

Trump, whom the Supreme Court previously blocked from ousting Cook over due process concerns, announced Friday that he has formed a panel of administration officials to review her statements on home loans, which he and his allies have claimed amount to mortgage fraud. He has demanded she appear at a White House hearing next month to answer the allegations.

"But the real defendant here is Kevin Warsh because his legacy is going to be defined by how he protects the Fed," Peter Conti-Brown, a Wharton School expert on Fed history, told Politico. "And whether he likes it or not, Lisa Cook, in this instance, is the Fed."

The timing adds to the pressure. Warsh and his colleagues hiked interest rates last month amid worries inflation wasn't easing fast enough, a move that defied Trump's repeated calls for cuts. The president stopped short of attacking Warsh directly, instead claiming he's controlled by "a very hostile board."

Cook's attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, maintain she did nothing wrong and said they have "grave doubts that this 'hearing' is a legitimate one that would conform to the law."

"We have engaged with the White House to evaluate whether the process proposed has a possibility of being a genuine one and not simply a box-checking exercise," they said.

Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) pinned the blame on Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, the Trump ally who first sent Cook's mortgage records to the Justice Department, saying the regulator should "take the shovel out of his hand and stop embarrassing the President."

Kathryn Judge, a Columbia Law School professor, warned that Warsh can't afford to stay quiet. "There's a real risk that silence will be read as being complicit in an effort to undermine the rigorousness and the robustness of the for-cause protection that has been fundamental to the Fed's independence," she said.

Conti-Brown said Warsh may instead try to work behind the scenes to cool tensions, but argued the president has a road map.

"The problem is that the Supreme Court sent a quite detailed invitation to President Trump," he said. "'You did it wrong the first time. Here's how to do it right.' And so far, President Trump is simply following the instructions that the Supreme Court left in their majority opinion."

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Jim Acosta flags slipping GOP seat as MAGA super PAC rushes in emergency cash

Jim Acosta sees a Republican-held House seat slipping away, and a major MAGA spending group appears to be thinking the same thing.

On Friday's episode of "The Jim Acosta Show," Acosta told Sam Forstag, the Democratic candidate running in Montana's 1st Congressional District, that he has "more than a fighting chance" against Republican Aaron Flint. Forstag said the main MAGA super PAC had just moved $1.9 million more into the race "because they're scared."

Acosta pointed to recent polling from NonStop Local Montana showing Forstag neck and neck with Flint, a right-wing talk radio host. "You could win this thing," Acosta told him.

"You're d— right we can," Forstag said. "Our last two polls, we're either in a dead heat or up three."

Forstag argued the district is more competitive than outsiders assume, noting that former Sen. Jon Tester carried Montana's 1st even while losing statewide. He said voters are responding to the rare sight of a union member on the ballot.

"A lot of people feel like they're getting BS'd by politicians in both parties and like whoever wins, working people lose," Forstag said.

After airing Forstag's campaign ad, which leans on his years parachuting into wildfires as a smokejumper, Acosta took a shot at the president.

"Has Donald Trump ever chopped wood? I seriously doubt it," Acosta said.

Forstag also accused Flint of riding outside money to the nomination, saying the talk radio host got through his primary with about $600,000 in spending from a super PAC tied to the artificial intelligence industry.

"That is the kind of obscene money being funneled into our elections to buy politicians while people are being forced out of house and home," he said.

Acosta pressed the case that voters are fed up with Washington. "It's unreal what's been taking place here in Washington, D.C.," he said, arguing Trump is "taking this country to the cleaners when he promised to rein in affordability."

Forstag closed by urging viewers to help. "They see those same polls we saw," he said. "So I want to keep them scared."

Acosta signed off with a nod to the matchup. "It's going to be a hard-fought battle, but you're neck and neck," he said.

Trump voters turn on Republican governor they call ‘scarier than a communist’: NYT

Some of President Donald Trump's most loyal supporters are turning on a powerful Republican governor, with one flipping a common Trump attack against him.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is bleeding support from MAGA voters furious over his school voucher crusade and his embrace of massive data centers, New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg reported Friday.

Lynn Davenport, a lifelong conservative who attended Trump's rally in Washington on January 6, 2021, though she left before the Capitol riot, told Goldberg that Abbott is a "globalist, which to me is scarier than a communist, a socialist or a Marxist."

Davenport, a Republican precinct chair as recently as 2024, went further than grumbling. In May, she filmed an ad for Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, who is running a surprisingly tight race to unseat Abbott.

"Gina is someone that I can work with, whereas Abbott doesn't care what I think," Davenport said.

She isn't alone. Mary Lowe, an education activist who has backed Republicans in nearly every election since 1979, called Abbott "a globalist. He's a tyrant. He's a great deceiver." Lowe said she plans to vote for Hinojosa in November, describing her as "one of us."

Steve Clugston, a school superintendent who voted for Trump in 2024, told Goldberg at a Hinojosa rally in Longview that his anger began with Abbott's voucher push, which included backing primary challenges against Republican lawmakers who blocked it.

"Our governor took billionaire money and then used it to beat Republicans that us Republicans elected," Clugston said. His disillusionment has since spread to Trump. "When you've lied to me enough, and sold us out for billionaires, I get to the point I'm done."

Rural anger over data centers has fueled the shift. Abbott recently paused new development pending an audit of energy and water use, but Goldberg noted the review is due to wrap up right after Election Day.

Hinojosa told Goldberg the conventional wisdom about which Republicans might cross over is wrong. "I think it's always been MAGA," she said.

Three recent polls, including a Times/Siena survey, show Hinojosa ahead, though others still have her trailing narrowly. Cook Political Report recently moved the race from "likely" to "lean" Republican. Abbott still holds a massive cash advantage, outspending Hinojosa roughly 6 to 1.

Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, still sees Abbott as the favorite but said something is shifting. "People are feeling the ground shaking," he said. "It's just a matter of how big it is going to be."

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