‘Gaslighting of the First Order’

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough described Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s remarks that “the left needs to tone down the rhetoric” as “gaslighting of the first order,” citing a laundry list of cases where Vance’s running mate has praised and incited violence.

Vance called on Democrats to “cut this c–p out” Monday following the second assassination attempt on his running mate, former president Donald Trump. Vance claimed “the difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months.”

“I’m not even going to respond to the hypocrisy,” Scarborough said on Tuesday’s Morning Joe.

Instead, he quoted extensively from New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker, who wrote Wednesday about how the “American political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred” by and against Trump.

“He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threatening to shoot looters and undocumented migrants, mocking a near-fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker and suggesting that a general he deemed disloyal be executed,” said Scarborough, reading Baker’s words.

“Mr. Trump insists his fiery speech to supporters on January 6th, 2021, was not responsible for the subsequent ransacking of the Capitol,” Scarborough continued, quoting from Baker’s piece. “He resisted pleas from advisers and his own daughter, other family members as well, that day to do more to stop the assault. He even suggested that the mob might be right to want to hang his vice president and has since embraced the attackers as patriots whom he may pardon if elected again.”

Scarborough then alluded to his own experiences with Trump, who in 2020 repeatedly and falsely promoted a conspiracy theory that the former Republican congressman was involved in the death of an aide in his congressional office. In fact, she died in an accident, striking her head after losing consciousness due to an abnormal heart rhythm. He also noted Trump’s amplification of posts calling for former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney–who endorsed Kamala Harris—to be sent to a military tribunal.

“The real introduction to violent rhetoric in America, in presidential campaigns, has been unprecedented since Donald Trump came onto the scene,” said Scarborough.

His guest, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina, also noted Trump’s statement that there were “very fine people” at the white supremacist Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

“You know, as they burned their tiki torches and chanted anti-Jewish sentiments,” Messina said, adding: “JD Vance is the latest symptom of what Trump started. He admitted the Springfield pet thing was made up by him and others to highlight an issue.”