Joe Scarborough debuted a new nickname for JD Vance, dubbing him the “troller-in-chief” over a string of divisive and false statements pushed by the vice president in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, Scarborough and the rest of the “Morning Joe” panel reacted to Vance’s comments about Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr’s role in Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension from ABC.
Last week, Vance told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that he would like critics of the administration “to tell me exactly what Brendan Carr did to have Jimmy Kimmel taken off the air.” The vice president contended that Carr had done no meddling, with Vance saying the real reason behind Kimmel’s suspension was “because he’s not funny” and “because his ratings aren’t very good.”
Scarborough said he rarely calls politicians flat-out liars but that “so many” of Vance’s statements “just demand it because they are so false.”
The MSNBC host fact-checked Vance’s claim and explained why ABC suspended Kimmel’s program just hours after Carr said the FCC could “do this the easy way or the hard way.” Carr told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
“It’s there. It’s all on video,” Scarborough said. “It’s all really easy to trace the timeline.”
“There’s one statement after another that are just detached from reality,” Scarborough added, turning to Vance’s recent comments on political violence.
“If you look at the political violence in our country over the last couple of months, the last couple of years, it is not a both-sides problem,” Vance said earlier this month. “It is primarily on one side of the political aisle. So if we are going to truly go after the political violence in this country, we need the Democratic leadership of Washington, D.C., to look in the mirror.”
“Everybody knows that’s a lie,” Scarborough said, citing recent data from the libertarian Cato Institute that shows right-wing violence is more prevalent. “One thing he did get right, he said, it’s predominantly on one side … and it’s the far right.” “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire also weighed in. “It’s a Washington joke about the lack of responsibilities [for] the office of the vice presidency,” Lemire said. “But JD Vance clearly has a lot of time on his hands because his No. 1 job description appears to be to — whether doing interviews or particularly on social media — not only pushing forth, you know, false statements, but just picking fights.” Lemire argued the vice president likely learned how to be “combative” and “a troll” from Donald Trump. He said in the wake of tragic events, Vance often goes to a “place of division” and asks himself, “What’s the thing I could say that’s the most confrontational?” Scarborough agreed with that assessment. “You’ve got a vice president who’s basically troller-in-chief,” he said. You can watch Scarborough’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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