Today's Morning Joe dropped a MOAB—Mother of All Bombshells. And yet it caused hardly a ripple on the set.
NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hillyard blithely reported this:
"If the Supreme Court were to affirm the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, and disqualify Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado, that'll have a far-reaching impact, likely removing him from the ballot in all 50 states.
"And of course, the concern of the Republican Party is the potential nullification of Republican electorates' votes as they're selecting their presidential nominee."
Wait a second! The concern about nullifying the votes of millions of Americans would be limited to the Republican Party? It wouldn't bother Americans at large, and specifically, the liberal media and the Democrats? You know, the people who are supposedly so concerned about existential threats to democracy?
Under the scenario Hillyard described, Donald Trump—the runaway leader of the Republican primary, and the man favored in most polls to win the general election and become President—would be entirely stripped of his ability to win the nomination and the presidency.
And that doesn't bother the likes of the Morning Joe crowd? Apparently not, because there was no reaction to it from the panel. Rather, Lemire only mentioned that Dems are afraid that the Colorado ruling will make Trump stronger. Perhaps -- but not if he winds up being banned from the ballot in all 50 states!
Maybe they weren't bothered because even the lefties at Vox expect the Supreme Court to reverse it on due-process grounds.
Note: Hillyard is the same reporter we caught last month blatantly mischaracterizing a statement by Trump to cast it in the most dire light. Hillyard claimed that Trump had threatened to "institutionalize" senior DoJ officials, including special counsel Jack Smith. Joe Scarborough was only too happy to run with Hillyard's false take.
In fact, in the statement in question, Trump had posted that because Smith and the other officials suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome, they will "end up" in a mental institution. In other words, Trump, in wise-acre colloquial terms, was saying that he is driving the prosecutors crazy—not that he would use his powers to have them locked away!
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
12/22/23
6:08 am ETJONATHAN LEMIRE: We want to turn now to get an update on a big story we've been tracking the last of couple days. And, Vaughn, you've been following the timing of former President Trump's legal team's expected appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court decision that removed the ex-president from the 2024 primary ballot. Vaughn, what's the latest?
VAUGHN HILLYARD: Right. Timing is everything here. And you're looking at all of these primaries beginning. Iowa is going first on January 15th. New Hampshire, one week later on January 23rd.
And if the Supreme Court were to affirm the Colorado Supreme Court's decision, and disqualify Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado, that'll have a far-reaching impact, likely removing him from the ballot in all 50 states.
And of course, the concern of the Republican party is the potential nullification of Republican electorates' votes as they're selecting their presidential nominee.
I am told that his team does, in fact, intend to file the appeal and take their chances, take this to the U.S. Supreme Court. We expect them not to file the appeal until after Christmas. So sometime most likely next week, but before January 4th, which is the requirement under the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling for them to appeal if, in fact, Donald Trump were to stay on the ballot as part of the stay an part of that initial order.
LEMIRE: President Biden hasn't weighed in on the merits of the case, but we heard from him this week, Katty, saying that it was clear that Donald Trump inspired an insurrection. But there's been a lot of debate about the political fall-out here, with a lot of Democrats worrying this will only make Trump stronger.
