By Ana Schau
Monday morning’s Morning Joe featured Way Too Early host Jonathan Lemire to lament the “lack of enthusiasm” for President Biden in his reelection bid among Democrat voters, as well as why this should not have been the case, and the subsequent heated discussion caused co-host Mika Brzezinski to erupt like a volcano about how these Democrats should “get over” anxieties about Biden’s age in the upcoming election, railing at them to “be like Gavin Newsom” and “do better.”
Lemire began by admitting that “being nervous is a—a—a permanent condition for Democrats,” but that this had particularly been the case with the beginning of Biden’s reelection campaign over the weekend. He bemoaned the reduction in popularity that Biden had been getting because of his obviously increasing age, an issue that has been “reinforced when he says something people don’t quite understand” (certainly a polite way of putting it) or on the multiple occasions that he had fallen down.
He complained that there were even Democrats who thought that Biden had “done a good job to this point” who did not want to vote for him again because of the age factor. He said that this age factor was among other issues that “shouldn’t matter” to voters, because his record of getting things done as president should apparently overrule these concerns.
This was where Scarborough and Brzezinski engaged in their little yelling match over how irrational and anxious the Democratic Party was as a whole with regards to this issue. Like the rumbling before the blast, Brzezinski started it all by sighing loudly during the points of the discussion when the others had been talking about these concerns that Democrats had, indicating her extreme distaste for them.
Scarborough, sensing her displeasure, acknowledged that he knew that she didn’t “like talking about this” issue. She angrily snapped at him with the bold claim that “every single Republican candidate would love to have Joe Biden’s problems…that their only issue…is that they’re older.”
Scarborough, baiting her into making a bold statement, asked her why she was “upset that every Democrat you talk to says this?” Taking the bait, she responded with an explosive, “get over it”: “Because, get over it. He’s your candidate. Start talking about the—be like Gavin Newsom. Do better.”
Essentially, Brzezinski seemed to want Democrats to simply ignore Biden’s concerning aging signs and vote for him regardless of them, on the grounds that he had done enough in his current term to justify voting for him again. Her brazen, angry “get over it” and “do better” to those other members of her own party who were only concerned about an elderly president, could not have been taken well, to say the least.
After having egged Brzezinski on by his questioning, Scarborough proceeded to proclaim that he was “not one of those people” who were “going around talking about [Biden] being too old to run.”
Ah, yes, those horrendous people who actually had somewhat of a conscience, and who knew that a person must have a certain ability level to be able to run a country, even if he had displayed some ability in the past that may have gone away. How dare they.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Newsbusters and is reposted with permission.