MEDIAITE
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough destroyed the Wall Street Journal over a “Trump hit piece” on President Joe Biden that relied on Republicans as sources — including one who previously contradicted what he told them.
Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes dropped a lengthy piece Tuesday night that relied on dozens of anonymous Republican sources and one on-the-record source — former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) — to claim there are “signs of slipping” in President Biden’s conduct at several meetings. No Democrats are quoted — anonymously or not — making such claims, and many said the opposite on the record.
On Wednesday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Scarborough, and co-host Mika Brzezinski went off on the piece and pointed out that the paper’s main source — McCarthy — had praised Biden in private and in public at the time of those meetings even as he tried to mock the president:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The Wall Street Journal is out with a new piece entitled Behind Closed Doors. Biden shows signs of slipping.
The Journal says it spoke with both Republicans and Democrats, who either participated in meetings with Biden or were briefed on them contemporaneously, but essentially only on the record, Republican critics in the article, the one is former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The Journal writes, quote,”Last year, when Biden was negotiating with House Republicans to lift the debt ceiling, his demeanor and command of the details seemed to shift from one day to the next. According to then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: They also quoted–
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Who was quoted in this article.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mike Johnson, people around Mike Johnson and admit that this was basically House Republicans whacking–
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Why didn’t they just ask Marjorie Taylor Greene?
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Exactly why? Yeah, they couldn’ve just.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: And Lauren Boebert.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah it it’s really shocking! Especially when you see what Kevin McCarthy has said repeatedly, publicly and behind the scenes about Biden on those same days when they were negotiating.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The strong feelings you’re seeing about this article comes, also because the context of this race and these two candidates, it’s interesting. That’s all I’ll say.
Anyhow, that flies in the face of what McCarthy said about Biden’s effectiveness in the past.
From Politico last year, quote, “McCarthy mocked Biden’s age and mental acuity in public.”
JOE SCARBOROUGH: In public, like like, like he did in this article.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: While privately telling allies that he found the president sharp and substantive in their conversations, a contradiction that left a deep impression on the White House.
This from the New York Times. “Privately, Mr. McCarthy has told allies that he has found Mr. Biden to be mentally sharp in meetings.”.
And this from the Hill. “Very professional, very smart, very tough at the same time,” McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol of his talks with Biden.
