On June 29, in a discussion about the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to affirm gay marriage as a constitutional right, Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough slammed President Obama for taking undeserved credit. The former Florida congressman noted: “[I]t’s sort of mind boggling that the president’s up there in 2015 and just as early as 2012 Joe Biden got out in front of the president. And Joe Biden's low point, politically, inside the White House was when he did that. Because he became immediately persona non grata.”
Scarborough added that the Obama administration was “enraged just three years ago that Joe Biden said he supported marriage equality.” The MSNBC personality emphasized how fast the politics of this issue have changed: “[J]ust go back to the president of the United States that we saw here celebrating in 2015 [was] scared to death in 2012 to get out front and say anything other than he opposed same-sex marriage.”
Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle made the distinction between Obama’s “political track” and Biden’s “awesomely human” track in their respective evolutions on gay marriage. Shifting to the aftermath of the ruling, Jeremy Peters of the New York Times found it fascinating that “not a single Republicans, of the 15 or 16 who are running for president, supports marriage equality.”
In response, Scarborough once again mocked President Obama for his less than genuine handling of the issue:
So they're taking the Obama position for 2015. I'm serious. Right now Obama – let's just, please, everybody be clear eyed about this. Because I saw a lot of people in the White House saying, oh, look what we did. Oh, it's amazing. Over eight years. So the Republicans are now taking, to be honest intellectually, Barack Obama's position in 2012 in his last presidential campaign until Joe Biden embarrassed him and made him come out.
Toward the end of the segment, the Morning Joe co-host suggested that both sides need to show grace following the Court’s decision: “[B]oth sides need to show grace. And the winning side needs to show grace as well as the losing side. You cannot call a Republican a bigot in 2015 for taking the same exact position that President Obama took in 2012.”
The relevant portion of the transcript is below.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
June 29, 2015JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mike Barnicle, it's sort of mind boggling that the president’s up there in 2015 and just as early as 2012 Joe Biden got out in front of the president. And Joe Biden's low point, politically, inside the White House was when he did that. Because he became immediately persona non grata. The staff wouldn't talk to him. The president throws him out. They were enraged just three years ago that Joe Biden said he supported marriage equality.
MIKE BARNICLE: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: Everybody talks about how fast this goes and they go back to 2004 and the Republicans – just go back to the president of the United States that we saw here celebrating in 2015 [was] scared to death in 2012 to get out front and say anything other than he opposed same-sex marriage. And when his vice president did, it was the low point of his political career inside the White House.
BARNICLE: The interesting aspect of that, at least to me, was they had two tracks going then. You had the president's track going then, Jeremy, which is a political track, and the vice president's track going, which as the vice president is, was awesomely human.
JEREMY PETERS: It was personal. It was emotional. I mean, pivoting to the Republicans a little bit here, I think a lot of parsing went on on Friday as we were trying to look through Republican responses to this case. And, you know, you can read into the nuance of them as much as you want. But I think one, single, unifying thread pulls all of these together – and that’s that not a single Republican, of the 15 or 16 who are running for president, supports marriage equality. Not a single one.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: There is that.
PETERS: There is that. But I think this is also just about – it’s about something larger.
SCARBOROUGH: So they're taking the Obama position for 2015. I'm serious. Right now Obama – let's just, please, everybody be clear eyed about this. Because I saw a lot of people in the White House saying, oh, look what we did. Oh, it's amazing. Over eight years. So the Republicans are now taking, to be honest intellectually, Barack Obama's position in 2012 in his last presidential campaign until Joe Biden embarrassed him and made him come out.
[...]
SCARBOROUGH: I agree. And I agree both sides need to show grace. And the winning side needs to show grace as well as the losing side. You cannot call a Republican a bigot in 2015 for taking the same exact position that President Obama took in 2012.
