YouSaid · the spoken record

Joe Scarborough

lines on the record: 58
first: 2021-01-14
most recent: 2021-01-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Understanding that the future of American democracy rests on Donald Trump and Donald Trump's party and people who think like Donald Trump losing every single election. So I don't know exactly how to accomplish that, but that's if I do get back into politics, that's going to be the goal to make sure that Trumpism is driven off the playing field. And what was the Khrushchev line about the ash heap of history? Putting the ash heap of history. So I don't know how to do that. I don't know where to do that, but I do think not only Donald Trump, but also the Republican senators, like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, the list goes on and on, people that sat back. And we're willing accomplices, useful idiots, they can't ever make it to the White House either.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there were several times I was thinking about running for the Senate and several times everybody I talked to said, why would you become the 99th ranking member in the United States when you have the perch you have at Morning Joe? And it's a good question. And obviously I decided not to jump back in. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do. I've got to figure out, first of all, if there's a party farming, because I know I'm never going to be a Republican again. And I'm not sure if anybody would.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fita thirty six years also figured out how to get things done. And I think history's lining up for Biden because, you know, Barack Obama had to deal with a far more divided Senate. We have, you know, we're going to have two Democrats from Arizona, two Democrats from Georgia. We got Susan Collins, a state in Maine where Biden won by nine points. We've got Mitt Romney. You've got a lot of people in the middle seven, eight, nine, ten, that are going to want to get some legislation done. So I'm hopeful that that can get done. And I would hope that Joe Biden would look to Harry Truman as an inspiration because Truman, you know, when Truman was passing the Truman Doctrine or the Marshall Plan, he had to do it with a Republican Congress that had been in the minority for 13, 14 years.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All of his, you know, everybody that was surrounding him in the cabinet. And so that appealed to me as well, that he knew how to get things done. And I'm hopeful that Joe Biden will also, because he was in the Senate for so long.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For Truman, I loved the fact that Harry Truman, while he may not have had a great education, he understood the Senate, he understood how it worked. And the older I get, even though I'm a populist at time, have this populist edge to me. grow more and more resentful of people who want outsiders in Washington, D.C. people that don't know how Washington, D.C. works. I don't want outsiders. I want people who know how Washington DC works. And that's something that Truman understood. He understood that he had to work with Arthur Vandenberg. He understood that he had to work with Republicans. He understood that he had to have the best and brightest people around him. And he did with George Marshall. He did with...”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That famous moment when he was at Harvard and he was looking at the Harvard graduating class and he said, you know, sometimes I think back and I just wonder what I might have accomplished if I had gone to a good school. And of course he had a sale. LBJ went to Southwest Texas teachers college and Truman graduated from Spalding Commercial College. I just named those last three guys three of the most effective politicians in working the Senate and getting legislation passed. Truman Foreign Policy, obviously LVJ just created a revolution in civil rights. Ronald Reagan, of course, basically had the counter revolution from the New Deal.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, so Biden had that chip on his shoulder being a state school guy. Reagan went to Eureka College. I think a lot of people remember that.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you look at Biden, who I always loved Joe. Like I know you've loved Joe. But, you know, in the past, he could be hot-headed at times and would carry around a chip on the shoulder. Everybody remembers 1987 when somebody made the mistake of asking about his education and he flew off the handle and started talking about scholarships. It didn't end well. I remember watching in the middle of this campaign, an older wiser Joe Biden starting to get angry about the fact that he had been asked about being the first guy who didn't have an Ivy League degree in 20 years or so. And he got angry and I looked. I said, you know what actually works now? It's really good. Absolutely.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And can I say one other thing on this front? And we've had this week, we've had Kurt Anderson on and having him on every day this week, evil geniuses and for a reason. Because as a small government conservative that always talked about the invisible hand, I've seen what the invisible hand has done even during COVID, where you've had the top 40 families in America pocketing billions and billions and billions of dollars. Well, you know, the bottom 50%, the bottom 70% are losing money. It's just the inequities have risen to such a level that it's a threat to American capitalism.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The federal debt to be driven down, we are in the equivalent of World War II right now. And so, you know, if we're talking about the debt, the federal debt going up more and giving people $2,000, I think it's something that we need to do for two reasons. One, to help those people, but two, to help small businesses. I think giving expansive benefits right now actually is the best way to help people and the best way to keep small businesses alive until this pandemic ends.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That local and state governments can't handle that. And so that's always been my view of government, the way government should be. But I am a completely different universe than my former Republican friends who I think are extremists. If you try to, you know, let's say you try to move up the top marginal tax, income tax rate by two percentage points, they'll call you a socialist. And so they take that in an extreme sort of way. I will tell you one area where I've had to change, and that's during COVID. That has had to do with benefits. I got into Congress because I wanted the balanced budget because I want...”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People I respected in the CDC, the people I respected the Pentagon, I don't say that obviously I have a great love for the United States military and have a great love for a lot of people. But I worked on the armed services committee for years. And as you know much better than I do, it's a very political place. Am I skeptical at times that people are cynical in Washington, D.C. I am, but what I try to explain to conservatives that have sort of taken this approach that all government is bad is you can have this pyramid. I mean, my goal is if something could be handled on the local level, handled it on the local level. If it can't, then try to get it handled on the state level. And if it can't, then it needs to be handled on the federal level. Obviously, if you're talking about the environment, obviously if you're talking about a lot of other issues.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I don't know if you remember this moment, but I was very much against building up forces in Afghanistan. And I remember President Obama, you guys were trying to balance things. And you ended up, I can't remember the specifics of it, but I think I called you and I had said, don't trust the generals. You can't trust whatever you give them, it's not going to be enough. And I remember some generals started leaking and going after President Obama. I remember being at a Christmas party saying to you, David, what did I tell you? The generals are going to fuck you every time. You can never give them enough. You can never give them enough because you're a Democrat and they can get away with it. So my skepticism towards government runs from...”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'm smiling. First of all, I don't remember that moment, but I do remember a moment I had with you at a Christmas party. Can I swear on this? Can I swear?”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rights on that. I'm hopeful that the Democratic Party is open to expanding their coalition. And some people like myself, I'm not saying I'm going to do it anytime soon, but people in the suburbs of Atlanta and people in other areas that were Republicans their entire life that have left that party, the Democratic Party needs to absorb them. They need to grow their coalition and they need to be able to beat the Republicans, not every four years, but beat them every two years and start winning some of these Senate seats back.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Why did a lot of them go to George Wallace afterwards? I didn't know the answer, other than you said, Bobby Kennedy connected to people that worked with their hands. And it's in the gut, you know? I think when I would walk in, when I would walk into rooms in debates and I was debating a Republican who was a real country club Republican, I knew the second I walked into the room, whether I had the room or not. And I knew it because, again, people feel politics in their gut. They connect on a very gut level. And I think that is the thing the Democratic Party has lost. And I am hopeful, and let me be blunt, it's not about Democrats, but it's about making sure that Donald Trump's Republican Party loses every election every two years for the rest of my life because I do think American democracy.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is what is so confusing to people that don't follow politics closely. And I always try to explain to audiences when they look at the last election and think that that's where America is going to be for the next 50 years. I've always said the same people that voted for Ronald Reagan twice voted for Bill Clinton twice, voted for George W. Bush twice, voted for Barack Obama twice, and now voted for Donald Trump once. The thing that Bobby Kennedy's family always had trouble grasping and I remember Joe, the son, and Ethel at different times took me aside separately. I think probably three or four years apart. And they knew, you know, I think they saw me. I don't know. Maybe this working class guy, but they took me aside separately and said, we've never been able to figure out why did people who supported Bobby”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With his coffin on there, and as the train went past, they turned their backs, walked back to their neighborhoods, and there's not been a party or a political force that's been able to bring those people back together again. So that has always been one of the reasons I got into politics because I do think I do think that there's a longing from Americans to get leaders that actually have the courage to bend history like Bobby Kennedy did. And I understand it's frustrating. I mean, I could talk to you for five hours nonstop about how frustrating it was for you and for President Obama. But we've got to figure out a way to keep fighting and to keep pushing at it because we have no choice.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I was going to say that was the Bobby Kennedy coalition. And there's a beautiful, tragic ending of a book where they're talking about Bobby Strain going from New York down to Washington and talking about black people saluting the train on one side of the tracks, white people saluting on the other side of the track. With a coffee.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Anyway, and Celessinger wrote about that night, how something like 100, 120 cities burned that night, Indianapolis went to sleep in peace. And it was just an inspiring story. And so politically, my Republican colleagues, what you saw me is sort of an odd guy. I didn't really, I think because I was a conservative slash libertarian populist. But my dream always was figuring out a way to connect to both working class whites and working class blacks. And the reason why”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I saw the world through their eyes and I was a conservative, no doubt. I grew up conservative and conservative household. I will say, though, I was inspired to get into politics when I read Arthur Schlesinger's biography of Bobby Kennedy. And specifically, and a lot of people talk about it. I've talked about it all the time, so it's not original, but specifically what Bobby did the evening of April 4th, 1968, went into Indianapolis. The cops told him not to go in there. They said it's too dangerous. We can't follow you in. And Bobby Kennedy went in.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They didn't understand what was happening. They didn't understand how the world was changing. They didn't understand why people were burning down cities. They didn't understand these rich elite kids that went to elite colleges taking over presidents' offices at Columbia. They were middle class. They worked their way into the middle class and they didn't understand any of it kids burning, you know, their draft cards.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My grandmom, who was a huge influence on me, was a lifelong Democrat, had a picture of FDR up until the day she died at the age of 93 in her living room. And they were in Dalton, Georgia. My mom was born in 1932, and they were born in the depths of the Great Depression. And my mom said, you know, Roosevelt was a king. We would have never survived without FDR. We would have never survived without the New Deal. But my, you know, it was some of my earliest memories were, you know, watching TV with my parents watching Walter Cronkite when I was five, six, seven, and 68, 69, 70, 71. And it was chaotic. It was very frightening. And I saw the world through the eyes of my mom and dad. They were scared as hell, the world that they knew had completely collapsed.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was born in the suburbs of Atlanta in 1963 sort of the wonder years and it was that was a type of neighborhood that I grew up in like millions of Americans. It's interesting my dad was a Republican, loved Nixon. My mom and her family were Democrats. She never told my dad but admitted to us later that she voted for JFK.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you get an invitation, I know Lindsey Graham took it a couple times, so it's not fair to say that nobody would do it, but if you got the invitation, take it and Trump always took it.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just Trump who always kept showing up at the door. And I had more problem with primetime networks running Donald Trump's speeches and not other candidate speeches. But I think my biggest regret had to do with how much we and everybody else did too, but how much we focused on Hillary Clinton's emails, which at the time seemed like a big deal. The Clinton Foundation, at the time, it seemed like a big deal. You take that and compare that to what we've been through over the past four years. And it really does make me scratch my head and go, okay, wait a second. Why did we focus on that as much as we did? But as far as Trump goes, we had an open invitation. And I think the lesson there is.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've been asked that question since I've been going on the book tour. And I said, well, what do you think about the guy that ran the radio show, Germany Today, in 1932? Did he regret having Hitler on? I mean, obviously there wasn't a Germany today. But of course, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't want to do it. I do have a regret, which I'm going to get to. It's not so much about having Donald Trump on the show as much as we did. And we had him on a lot in 2015 and into early 2016. But we also, we invited everybody else on, and we would have Trump on. And then we would say, if you were running for President of the United States, pick up the phone and call us. We'd love to have you on. We try to get Jeb to do it. We try to get Hillary to do it. She finally did it one time before the Iowa caucuses. And so that was an open invitation.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he called me up screaming about a week or two in when his person went on and said the president's authority shall not be questioned. And that was pretty much the end of that. I actually thought, though, David, I will be honest, I got to say this. I actually thought he was so vain that he would work with Nancy Pelosi and he would work with Chuck Schumer and he would try to be seen as this renegade outsider that could get things done in Washington, D.C. I did think there was that hope. I didn't vote for him. I would never vote for him. I told everybody I could never vote for him starting back in December 2015. But I was hopeful. I thought it might turn out pretty. Badly, but I never, I never, ever expected it to turn out this badly.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Michael Hayden and Bob Gates and other people would say, hey, Rudy Giuliani can't be Secretary of State. You used to have influence with this guy. If you have any influence with him, you need to talk to him. So we talked to him a good bit during that transition time. And our two goals were simple. And I know this guy probably piss off journalists, but we did what we did. And our two goals were one, to stop Rudy Giuliani from being Secretary of State and two, to stop Chris Kobach from being Department of Homeland Security. And we hammered on him nonstop. We kept suggesting more establishment type figures. But, you know, Mik and I were sitting watching in her apartment in Washington the inauguration and about two minutes into it. We were like, yeah, this is just going to be ugly. And sure enough, it was ugly.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Need to get it behind you. And I think we talked to him on a day that he had some 60 minutes interview with Pelly. And I remember saying to him, I said, I said, this is disgusting. You've got to say who's born an American. You've got to say he's a Christian. Like, stop dog whistling. But when things get especially ugly, it was in December of 2015 when he after Paris he talked about the Muslim registry. And that's when I asked, is this what it was like? in Nazi Germany in 2015. And so we had very rough ride. I supported Jab. And so throughout early 2016, he was tweeting ugly things about us and saying he was going to reveal the truth about Joe and Joe and his crazy longtime girlfriend. So throughout most of 2016, it was. Tough after we get elected. We went in to talk to him because, you know, Dr. Brzinski and”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, we kept telling him if he was going to run, he had to drop it. And he would always sort of say, well, you know, I haven't really done this. And it's not me. It's other people who say, you know, Donald, it's you. And then he would say, well, I'm not really saying he wasn't born in a. And yes, you are. And if you pushed him early on, I think it was in 2015. I said it's disgusting and you know what you're doing. And he said, well, what I'm really doing is I'm trying to get him to prove that he something about he got into Harvard or something or whatever by saying that he was born in Kenya or something like that. It was one of these convoluted things. And Mik and I just said, well, it's disgusting and you really.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we made the same mistake that, and people hate when you draw this analogy. I just, I've got to draw it. I think we made those same mistakes that people made during Hitler's rise. We kind of thought he was the class clown of New York City. We thought he was a joke, but at the same time, I think you saw what I saw. I thought he was going to poke the establishment. I thought I never loved the Republican establishment, as you know. I never really loved the Democratic establishment. I thought he might shake some things up, but I never really thought the guy was going to win. Our problem with him came, a real problem with him came, obviously, early on with the birtharism, which we always talk to him about.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seven, eight years ago, a guy was selling vegetables under an overpass, I think in New Jersey. Mika heard about it. And, you know, tried to get the guy job. Finally, she called Donald and said, hey, this guy, he's a hard worker, his family. He's got three kids. Long story short, that guy like seven, eight years ago, got a job as a working in the back at one of Trump's properties in New York City. And now he's a doorman. He's got, so that was a part of him that we knew. We also knew at the same time there was the other side of him. He was not a nice guy in many ways. He was not a guy you wanted to go into business with. He was not a nice guy to work for. But we knew him.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know it's a good question. And you're right, and this is the thing, this is the Donald Trump that we knew. We were $100,000 short with our goal that we'd said that we were going to help you guys in fundraising. And so we just did what I said, well, let's go, Donald. He'll write a hundred thousand dollar check. And as you and I know, a lot of billionaires, and I doubt he's a billionaire, but a lot of billionaires, you try to get $25 from him. And if their name's not all over it, they're not going to give you the money. But he would, when we had charity events and we would try to get money, we could always get money from him. He was always there as far as helping other people too. He helped, it's hard to believe. It's just hard to believe. But he helped Mika knew an immigrant family that was down on their lot.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The fact that Facebook and Twitter and all these social media sites continued to publish that and they are publishers really outrageous. So, you know, I will say the one thing I agree with Donald Trump after four years in the White House is in Section 230, which I voted for in the telecom reform bill in 96 is outrageous. The fact that fake... Yeah, the immunity, the fact that Facebook and Twitter, they have the immunity against lawsuits that they have, when they make billions of dollars off of what third-party people put on their sites is really outrageous.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that vicious towards the Klasudas family, I think actually gave them an opportunity for the first time to speak out and clear the air. But again, it's the world we live in. But what really made me angry was the fact that Twitter wouldn't take it down. Facebook wouldn't take it down. They all knew it was slanderous. They all knew that Donald Trump was lying about a woman who had been dead for 19 years, suggesting that she had an affair, got pregnant, and then was killed and part of some cover-up. And so, you know, and Trump referred to her as my girlfriend and suggested that something was amiss. And so”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but who's counting? Exactly. If you're accused by the President of the United States a dozen times of murder and he's trying to get people to actually bring charges against you, yeah, who's counting? But the real victim there was the young lady, her husband, who he and I have talked through the years. We've sort of been each other's counselors on walking through this. But he suffered. He hasn't been able to move on. He wants to be able to bury his wife and bury these bad memories and move on. And the family, the mom and dad are still alive. And so it's just like, you know, it's just like Seth Rich's parents. I think TJ Cold, Seth Rich's parents, and they commiserated about all of this. And I will say that in a strange way, Donald Trump, being that hateful,”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it was, I was getting it from these extreme left-wing sites on the internet. But then when they wanted me to run against Catherine Harris in 2006, then it was Catherine Harris and the Republicans who started trotting that out and trying to use it against me. But, you know, I wasn't a victim. Donald Trump accused me of murder 12 times. But, you know, I wasn't a victim in that.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting, I can tell you that nobody's hands are clean because when it was first used against me, it was used by Democrats who were angry because I participated in the Florida recount process as far as, you know, I ran around for 38 days, would go on TV for George W. Bush.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much rooming effect, and so suddenly you had hard right talk radio that I think really did have a substantial impact on American politics. And then you follow that up with Fox News in 1996, MSNBC started in 1996. But as we saw in Talk Radio, as well as cable news, the left-leaning media didn't explode like right-leaning media did. And it did. It dramatically changed American politics. I think a lot of us sort of shrugged it off and laughed, you know, at limbaugh and said, oh, he brings up some pretty good points. Oh, there's a pretty good talking point. I'll use that on the campaign trail. Here's where the years went by. And you just saw this mushrooming effect and suddenly. Your political opponents weren't wrong. Your political opponents were evil. And it took it, again, it took an especially turn.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I'd be quite so reluctant, but a man who has terminal cancer, I hate to pinpoint it to any one moment, but if I had to pick one moment where things changed, it would be the rise of Rush Limbaugh when tens of millions of Americans would start listening to Rush Limbaugh and listen, he really did turn politics into entertainment. And he really did vilify the left. But what made it worse is you then had the people who copied Limbaugh. And so Handity copied Limbaugh and handed wasn't as talented by the microphone as Limbaugh because, I mean, Limbaugh is an extraordinary broadcaster, else he wouldn't have been able to create a new form that he did. And so it became more shrill. And then you have Mark Levin, who became more shrill. And then you had this.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Next week. No, mom. No aunt care. No, no, every single day they would call me at 601 or 602. But just to explain to people that are a little bit younger how it's not completely new. When I first started running, people went and spread these lies on Facebook or on Glenn Beck show. They would send around emails. And every morning I would get a different email from my mother. And it would be like, did you know of the 435 members of Congress, 388 have declared bankruptcy. 241 have committed sexual assault. 98 have been convicted of rape. And you would get a different one of these every day. And I would have to call my mom and go, Mom, quit sending those to me. I'm in Congress. And so there's always been this paranoid style in American politics. And I hate to pinpoint, though I think some of your Listeners might”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“South Central LA and get black people addicted to crack, you can go through each president. And George H.W. Bush in the late 1980s sending crack into South Central LA, Bill Clinton, the murderer, George W. Bush. I remember seeing a poll in 2005, 2006, something like 52% of Democrats in a politico poll thought it was 9-11 was an inside job. And then the conspiracy theories really started to go wild in 2009, obviously, when Barack Obama became president of the United States. I would have to every day at like six o'clock. I think Glenn Beck was on, I think, from five to six. And at 6.01, I would have to deprogram my mom and my aunt every night. No, mom, no mom, no. There's not going to be Sharia law in Pensacola.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I think there's obviously been a strain of this paranoid style of politics for quite some time. I remember seeing a paperback around my parents' house in the 60s. None dare call it treason. I think the guy that wrote that book accused Lyndon Johnson of murdering 11 people. You can fast forward that to Bill Clinton, where the Clinton Chronicles and Jerry Falwell Sr. actually putting out videotapes, accusing Bill Clinton of murdering people in his rise in Arkansas, his rise to the presidency. I remember in the late 1980s hearing Congresswoman and some other people accused George H.W. Bush, the CIA director of working with the CIA to sit and crack into.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think just like Republican congressmen who had fear were fearful of Donald Trump, I think some people in law enforcement were likely also fearful of putting too much strength behind security against Donald Trump supporters, who the president of the United States had called Well, since June the 2nd of this year and have told people in uniform time and again, you are not to choose sides politically. We are here to uphold the Constitution of the United States. But I do think that there's a growing cultural problem, possibly inside the military, possibly inside law enforcement, and it needs to be rooted out. And this is a good time to do it. This is a good excuse to go in there and root out white supremacists that are inside not only our military, but also some of our police organizations.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that we had white people going up the steps of the United States Capitol and allowed to just go straight in. If it had been black people, they would have been shot in the face trying to rush through those doors. If it had been Muslims, they would have been sniped from the top of the buildings. It was just deeply offensive to me. And I was angry. And we had Colin Powell on the show and ended up, you know, I was saying staring at the TV what Colin Powell was saying. Where is everybody? Where are other law enforcement officers? Why is this allowed to happen? And you can't help but think, and I don't reduce everything to rice, but in this case, I'm reducing this to race. If you compare the scenes around the capital and the Lincoln Memorial during the Black Lives Matter marches and compare with what happened last week, it's a pretty disgraceful display by law enforcement. I don't understand why they weren't prepared and I don't understand.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I'm a Republican. I'm not a Republican. I'm a conservative. I believe in the Castle doctrine. Don't walk into my house at night. It doesn't end well for you. So I really had such a close affinity for the House of Representatives for the United States Congress. I really do see it as a people's house. I really do see that as the center of democracy, not just in America, but the world. I was very angry. I was very angry by what I saw. And I was also very angry that I speak speaking of docile. I was also very angry how some of the Capitol Hill police responded. I understand there were others, obviously tragically lost their lives and there are others that were doing the best they could do. There were some real heroes there. But I was angry that the Catholic Hill Police were as ill-prepared as they were. I was angry that”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Indicted in New York City or New York State. And so she may be able to survive because of that. But I think the Republican Party as it is, I do think just it may be a bad analogy, but they're sort of the Whigs of our time. I don't think there's any way that this party survives as a national party. It's not a birth cry. It's a death rattle of white nationalism, people angry inside the party because, you know, it's not Ronald Reagan's America. 75% of Americans aren't white anymore. And white people are going to be a minority in the coming decades. And I think that the Republicans have decided to be the party of 1956 instead of 2020.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's going to be very difficult for Liz Cheney. She's doing the right thing, and I'm glad she's doing the right thing. I think for the reasons you stated, she's going to have to be very aggressive and she's going to have to state her case in Wyoming. And she may survive only because we still don't know how bad it was inside the capital. It's a crime scene. They're going through it. I just saw some video before I came on here that was absolutely horrifying, people planning to team up together and go and cause real havoc. And obviously hang the vice president of the United States and, you know, another guy talking about assassinating Nancy Pelosi. I suspect there will be a cascading of one negative story after another against Donald Trump over the next couple years. I suspect that he's going to be in.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, Jeff Flake and some of these other Republicans, Mark Sanford, a friend of mine, if you're going to go after Trump, you got to go after Trump. You got to go 90 miles an hour. And then you need to go back to your base and explain why you're doing it. And nobody ever seemed willing to do that. You have to be all in. And they were intimidated by Donald Trump and his tweets.”
2021-01-14 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 425 — Joe Scarborough · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source