MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for privately criticizing Donald Trump and publicly defending his actions ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
New recordings emerged of Graham predicting Americans would rally against Trumpism -- "we are better than this," he said -- but the "Morning Joe" host said the South Carolina Republican had proved over and over that he was not, in fact, better than that.
"This is a funny thing with Trumpers, why do you change?" Scarborough said. "Why do you want -- you know, I heard it from Republicans, in general, for years, why have you changed? You know, the party's gotten crazy as hell, and the party changed, but here you have Liz Cheney. I'm like, Liz -- the same, same as it ever was, same as it ever was."
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy also blamed Trump for the insurrection, both publicly and privately, before jetting to Mar-A-Lago to kiss the twice-impeached former president's ring.
"You've got Kevin going like this, he's all over the place -- 'Oh, I love Donald, I hate Donald, this is Donald Trump's fault!'" Scarborough said, paraphrasing McCarthy's conflicting positions. "'Yeah, Liz, let's figure out how -- I'm going to go talk to Donald and tell him to resign to get out.' You know, and Liz is saying, okay, and Liz stays the same, and these poor, feckless, weak, cowardly guys go down and shine Donald Trump's shoes. It's just -- it's unbelievable. Liz hasn't changed, Lindsey's changed and Kevin's changed and the Republican Party has changed since Jan. 6."
However, he said, one thing has remained the same for Republicans since Trump entered the scene.
"The one thing that is constant that, Willie, you and I have said, for five, six years now, is Republicans say one thing about Donald Trump on the air, and off the air, even people who have worked with him trash him -- they can't stand him," Scarborough said. "And that's why earlier this morning, we talked about the Ricketts said to hell with Donald Trump, we're going to run him over politically. The fact that the Ricketts aren't scared of Donald Trump, and they humiliated Donald Trump in Nebraska sends a message to a lot of other Republicans that you can take this guy on, and you can beat him."
