Turns out our flippant speculation about Joe Scarborough's fragile psyche wasn't so funny after all.
On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough made the stunning admission that at times during the last four years, he was so "agitated" by the news that "Mika would have to watch the news for me."
Scarborough's been showing signs of agitation for some time. In November 2019, Mika was so manifestly embarrassed by his verbal excesses that she hung her head in embarrassment.
Here's Scarborough on Wednesday:
Michael Beschloss, you know we always, we go back. And for me, over the past four years, I will admit at times when it was hard to watch the news, in fact, Mika would have to watch the news for me. For a year or two at a time, I could not watch. I could only read the news, because I was so agitated by what I saw.
But reading history always provided me great comfort over these past four years. Because I saw, whatever we were going through at times, seemed small compared to what, what concerns that we had faced in the past.
In April 2020, we noted Joe going on a screaming fit about the coronavirus so loud that at times it pegged the sound system. Wife and co-host Mika, obviously concerned about her husband, suggested to Scarborough that he might want to soothe his nerves with a musical time-out, asking, "do you need to go listen to the Stones, or are you okay?"
Then in July, when Joe disappeared from the show for two weeks, we wrote of Mika tweeting in explanation, "I told him to."
We have variously written of Joe being "unhinged," needing a "rest break," having a "wounded psyche," being "pitifully frazzled," and having "late-stage Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Turns out none of that, apparently, was hyperbole. For Scarborough, and no doubt many others in the liberal media, it's been all too real. This NewsBuster has been a fierce Scarborough critic for years. But on this Inauguration Day, we sincerely wish him healing.
Note: Scarborough said that during the past four years, he turned to reading history "for comfort." At the end of the segment, he asked historian Michael Beschloss for assurance that, looking ahead, there is "hope" for the country. Beschloss comforted Joe, telling him that, "if you study American history, you always have to be an optimist in the end."
Joe Scarborough admitting that at times he was so "agitated" by the news that wife Mika Brzezinski had to watch it for him was sponsored in part by Casper, Safelite and Norton Antivirus.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
1/20/21
7:27 am ETJOE SCARBOROUGH: Michael Beschloss, you know we always, we go back. And for me, over the past four years, I will admit at times when it was hard to watch the news, in fact, Mika would have to watch the news for me. For a year or two at a time, I could not watch. I could only read the news, because I was so agitated by what I saw.
But reading history always provided me great comfort over these past four years. Because I saw, whatever we were going through at times, seemed small compared to what, what concerns that we had faced in the past.
. . .
This has happened time and time again, and yet this country, this capital, this republic continues. Certainly there is hope for us over the next four years that we can come together, is there not? Does history not show us that time and again?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: It sure does! You know, Joe, one thing all of us who are together this morning, and I love being with all my friends this morning together on this amazing occasion, is, we all love history. And if you love American history, and if you study American history, you always have to be an optimist in the end.
