Within the few five minutes of MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday—a show we know President Trump likes to watch—hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had decided the Michael Flynn resignation disaster was all Kellyanne Conway’s fault.
As Scarborough pointed out, the “chaos” began yesterday when Conway went out on his network and said Trump had “full confidence” in Flynn. Approximately one hour later, the White House was forced to put out a statement that said Trump was still “evaluating the situation,” a direct contradiction.
“How many times does she go out and say things that are not true?” Brzezinski asked of Conway, as Scarborough chimed in with, “blatantly false.” Brzezinski continued, “I will not interview her, it's giving people dishonesty,” adding, “It’s not worth the interview.”
“She goes out and lies and you find out about those lies a couple hours later,” Scarborough said, adding that he’s heard “she is so out of the loop, she's in none of the meetings and she just goes out there and starts talking without having facts.” Brzezinski corrected him. She’s not “talking,” she’s “blathering.”
Other panelists on the show concurred. “If you're going to put her out there, everyone has to be on the same page,” Willie Geist said. “I don't understand why she would agree to do an interview,” Mark Halperin added. “It makes no sense.”
But their attacks did not carry the same venom as the ones from the two main hosts. “It happens time and again,” Scarborough said. “She's been out of the loop for months now,” something he said she tries to ameliorate by taking “selfies” with the president. Brzezinski said Conway just uses these interviews to “suck up” and it’s not working.
Later, when Geist pushed back on some of the criticism by saying that Conway is not “booking herself” on all of these cable news shows, Scarborough asked, “How do you know that?” The host called her a “free agent” who “goes out and says whatever she wants to say,” something “everybody in the White House but Donald Trump has complained about for months.”
Going even further, as Scarborough predicted that Conway will claim to be “victimized” when called out for her lies, Brzezinski added, “because she’s a woman.” It’s a tactic that Conway has tried, and mostly failed to employ when she’s found herself in hot water for misleading the press.
Less than two months ago, when Conway was named counselor to the president in Trump's White House, she appeared on Morning Joe to share details about the new gig. After Brzezinski noted to Conway that "you and I have spoken a little bit" about what went into the decision, Conway replied, "I appreciated your counsel and your friendship throughout, Mika, and that of many others."
Morning Joe is a show built on access to the most powerful insiders in Washington, D.C. As of today, its hosts have seemingly decided that Kellyanne Conway no longer fits that bill.