Avert Your Eyes and Ears: Here’s the Worst ‘Morning Joe’ Reactions to Biden’s SOTU

MSNBC’s Morning Joe decided on Wednesday to engage in comically dumb wishcasting about President Biden’s State of the Union address, insisting Tuesday’s speech was “brilliant,” “rallying,” a “return to normalcy”And “very unifying”It was a great show. “the expanse of his personality in full blossom” and why Biden was made for this moment amid Russia’s war.

Syrupy love notes aside, the show had plenty of nutty takes, such as an insane explanation for why Russian dictator Vladimir Putin didn’t invade under Donald Trump and then, separately, an offensive comparison between Ukrainians fighting the Russian military and so-called voting rights activists in the U.S.

Joe Scarborough, co-host of the Tuesday Night Show, was wooed just four minutes in to the program. “a return to normalcy” as Biden didn’t do “a lot of puffing of one’s chest” Or make “Mussolini-type gestures” Instead, he gave “a unifying speech”That was doubled “a defense of western democracy” And “values.”

Scarborough informed frequent panelist Mike Barnicle at 7:00 AM Eastern that the problem was solved. “an important reset for the Joe Biden presidency” based in moderation like Bill Clinton in speaking to “middle class people” on immigration, price controls, supporting Made in the USA products, and soaking the rich.

Barnicle agreed, describing Biden’s speech as having illustrated “the difficulty and the expanse of the job of being president” navigating “a fire hose of issues.”

He was so animated about Ukraine that I couldn’t help but smile and wish him a happy birthday. “frustrat[ion]”Barnicle expressed concern at the slower pace in which schools and workplaces were reopened. “the expanse of his persality in full blossom” on “a very, very solid night for” Biden, the President and commander-in-chief “citizen.”

In the next hour, longtime MSNBC host and NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell swooned that Biden was made for this time (click “expand”):

MITCHELL, He could have done more about Ukraine. His actions on Ukraine were brilliant and he was able to rally support from all sides. I felt that he abandoned it too quickly to make the more traditional State of the Union. He wanted to bring back his Democratic agenda and domestic agenda. I thought very smart on funding — funding the police, very smart on COVID, could have not dealt with the other stuff. 

BRZEZINSKI: Right.

MITCHELL: Let’s just talk about why and how we should care about Ukraine. 

BRZEZINSKI: It’s a massive — 

MITCHELL: This is —

BRZEZINSKI: — world moment. 

MITCHELL: — yeah — this is — this is a moment in history. 

BRZEZINSKI: Yes. 

MITCHELL We care that democracy is preferred to autocracies. We haven’t witnessed this moment since the fall of Berlin Wall. 

The Swamp denizen also lashed out at the Trump administration, saying NATO’s united front against Russia was due to “all the spade work done by this administration to repair the damage over the last four years, the previous four years, all that work, all those trips and the meetings[.]”

Going to the mind-numbingly dumb takes, former Democratic Senator-turned-MSNBC pundit Clare McCaskill offered an incoherent take about why the Russian invasion of Ukraine was Trump’s fault even though it’s happened on Biden’s watch and why Putin wasn’t waiting for a possible Trump return to the White House.

Of course, the panel went right along with it (click “expand”):

MCCASKILL Putin desired that. He waited. Trump would be able to get him a second term. That’s what he thought. That is all this idiot wants. He longs to be an empire again. All the states that broke off from the USSR should be brought back under Russian control. The key is to destroy NATO. And Donald Trump was his best friend — 

MIKA BRUZINSKI: Yup.

MCCASKILL: — in trying to bust up NATO. Trump didn’t allow him to go. He is now going because this was his last chance, as he felt there were still divisions in NATO and such divisions in the United States which would make us weaker. 

BRZEZINSKI: Chilling. 

MCCASKILL: We weren’t as prepared as we should have been, but we’re — I think we are a hell of a lot more prepared than Putin thought we would be. 

BRZEZINSKI: It’s chilling, but everything Trump was doing as it pertains to Russia and secret meetings and cozying up to Putin — 

SCARBOROUGH: Yep.

BRZEZINSKI: — getting dirt on a political rival, it kind of explains where we are today. This set the stage. It was the beginning of everything.

SCARBOROUGH – Yes, John Bolton did indeed lay it out clearly. There — there’s a reason why he was trying to gut NATO for four years and why he openly had contempt for NATO. 

BRZEZINSKI : It was trampled. 

SCARBOROUGH, SC: The reason we are witnessing right now just what powerful NATO can get when the United States backs it is that. 

Incoherence? PoliticsNation Al Sharpton, host of the show twice said that those who are fighting for Ukraine were like people like him wanting to have a huge federal power grab on our electoral system.

Sharpton first told the panel: “remember” that, “as we are talking about protecting democracy Ukraine, we have laws being changed to repress the vote in the United States”And “[y]ou can’t be a global democratic defender and a domestic allower of — of repressing the vote.”

“[W]e have a domestic threat to voting as we protect the right of the people — to self-determination in Ukraine,”He concluded.

Sharpton later insisted that Americans be included “have…support here at home”Please see the following: “democratic principles”As we do in Ukraine, because of the “the right of people in Texas and North Carolina, Georgia, etc. to vote” It is important to remember that.

“I think it’s a challenge both for the Ukrainian people at the border and a challenge to Democrats in the United States…You cannot stand up to Putin and have a little Putin-ism in your own backyard,”He explained that he compared those with whom he disagrees politically to Russian soldiers who commit what many consider war crimes.

What a unifying concept.

This Biden lovefest was brought to you by advertisers such as Applebee’s, Lincoln, and TD Ameritrade. Follow the links to see the contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.

Click here to see the MSNBC transcript for March 2.