Joe Scarborough didn’t bother with pleasantries Friday morning. The Morning Joe host tore into Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican offered cover for President Donald Trump’s latest barrage of threats—this time aimed at Democratic lawmakers who reminded U.S. service members of a basic principle: following illegal orders is not an option.
“Lindsey knows better, that’s what’s so pathetic about it,” Scarborough said on MS NOW’s Morning Joe. “It’s sad!”
The uproar began Tuesday when a video featuring several Democratic lawmakers circulated on social media. In it, the lawmakers urged active duty troops to “refuse illegal orders,” a message that—until recently—would have been considered both uncontroversial and firmly in line with military law.
Trump, however, responded with fury. By Thursday, he’d escalated from calling for the lawmakers to be imprisoned to suggesting they should be sentenced to death.
Rather than distance himself from the president’s outburst, Graham stepped up to support Trump’s push for investigations—and even floated the idea that the lawmakers might deserve the death penalty. For Scarborough, who noted he had considered Graham a friend for “a long time,” that was a bridge too far.
“Come on, Lindsey! You of all people know that troops cannot commit illegal actions!” Scarborough said. “You should be saluting your colleagues for telling them ‘don’t commit illegal actions!’”
Scarborough didn’t spare Trump either. He argued that the president’s sudden fixation on punishing Democrats had less to do with national security and more to do with political survival.
“Donald Trump, he’s trying to distract from the Epstein files! He’s trying to distract from the fact that he has the lowest approval rating that he’s had in the second term, he’s trying to distract from the fact that Democrats have the largest generic ballot lead that I can remember in my lifetime, 54 to 41,” Scarborough said.
“He’s trying to distract from the fact that only one in three Americans say that they think Donald Trump is handling the government the right way, you could go on and on! So what do you do? You say these senators should be executed!”
The whole episode underscores just how far the political discourse has degraded—when reminding troops to follow the law is treated as treason, and elected officials shrug as a president calls for execution sentences against his political opponents. Even for those who’ve watched the chaos of recent years unfold in real time, Scarborough’s anger captured the mood: this isn’t normal, and pretending it is only makes it worse.
Watch the video below:
