Joe Scarborough went off on another of his patented rants on today's Morning Joe. The object of his ire was Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. We counted 17 times during the tirade that Scarborough accused Paul of being a "liar," or of "lying."
Poor Joe had been triggered by Paul's comments at a Senate hearing yesterday on election integrity. He said “fraud happened" and "The election in many ways was stolen, and the only way it'll be fixed is by in the future reinforcing the laws."
"We can’t just say, 'It didn’t happen,'” Paul said about fraud allegations across the country. “We can’t just say, 'Oh, 4,000 people voted in Nevada that were noncitizens, and we’re just going to ignore it.'”
This caused Scarborough to repeatedly accuse Paul of "undermining American democracy."
At the end of the rant, Scarborough bemoaned the fact that senators can't be "sanctioned" for lying. Scarborough didn't specify what sanctions he had in mind. And not that we're agreeing with Scarborough about Rand Paul, but there wouldn't be enough jails in America to hold all the politicians who lie!
Question for Scarborough: if senators should be sanctioned for lying, what kind of punishment should be meted out to a president who promised, "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan?" Asking for a friend whose premiums have tripled.
No one sanctions the media for their long insistence that voter fraud is nearly non-existent. Luckily, no one sanctions Joe Scarborough for lying about Trump having Mein Kampf at his bedside.
Scarborough's rant was sponsored in part by Neutrogena, Discover, Mazda, and Amazon.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
12/17/20
6:13 am ET
JOE SCARBOROUGH: We've had Rand on the show. What does he get out of being a liar? . . . What does he get out of lying to the American people about things that he's lying to the American people? . . . He's been lying to his constituents and the American people about COVID since the beginning. He's been shooting out conspiracy theories. He's used his position as a senator to lie repeatedly this year. He's used his position as a senator to lie about a stolen election. He's lying about courts . . . The sort of lies that Rand Paul is spreading right now. That this election was rigged . . .Hello?? Rand Paul: why are you lying to the American people? I don't get it. What's in it for you, Rand, to be a liar? Why do you want to spread violence across American by spreading this lie? . . . You know it's a lie. You keep stirring the lie up! . . . Help us out here, Rand. Help us out. Why do you keep lying to people in Kentucky? Why do you keep lying to the American people? . . . Rand Paul is purposely undermining American democracy, and he's lying.
. . .
There are no facts that any lawyer would go before a federal judge, and put before that court. Even the most conservative Trump-appointed judges, because they would be sanctioned for lying. I guess it's a shame we don't have sanctions that are levelled against United States senators when they purposely lie to undermine Americans' faith in democracy.
