Joe Scarborough slammed President Donald Trump following his SOTU speech. MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host criticized what he described as misleading claims and divisive rhetoric in Trump’s speech.
Joe Scarborough calls out Donald Trump’s SOTU address
Joe Scarborough opened Morning Joe by mocking commentators who praised the speech. He used a nasal tone to imitate an unnamed conservative newsperson who called it “extraordinary.” The host quickly countered: the only “extraordinary” part of Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech was him doing “unrelenting bigotry, the lies, the attacking of one group specifically.”
Donald Trump’s SOTU address, which is the longest on record, focused heavily on immigration, the economy, and alleged fraud. He announced a “war on fraud” led by Vice President JD Vance. It referenced a welfare fraud scandal in Minnesota and linked it to the local Somali community, whom he referred to as “pirates.” Trump also described violent crimes committed by individuals in the country illegally, with victims’ families present in the chamber.
“It is a continued lie by this Republican Party and they know they’re lying when they continue to suggest that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than those who are native-born Americans,” Scarborough said. He pointed to several studies that have refuted this claim. Research from the National Institute of Justice analyzed Texas criminal records between 2012 and 2018. It found that undocumented immigrants had the lowest offending rates for felony and violent felony crimes.
Scarborough also took issue with the framing. “I’m not gonna talk about facism or Nazism. Just read history and see what type of regimes will pick one or two groups and blame all of America’s ills on those groups. That’s one of the things that the president did,” he said. He called the approach “un-American” and contrary to what the Republican Party and Ronald Reagan historically represented.
All in all, Scarborough’s criticism of Trump’s SOTU speech reflects the deep partisan divide over the president’s messaging and policy claims.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
