Joe Scarborough admonished author and New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas for overreacting to President-elect Donald Trump’s tweet about burning the American flag Tuesday, saying the fear he’s spreading is not rational.
“I support the ability of people to be able to burn the American flag if they want to,” Scarborough said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “But people have the right in this country to debate it, and it does not mean that the Third Reich is going to march down our streets because somebody tweeted.”
Trump suggested burning the American flag should be criminalized in a tweet Tuesday, suggesting prison time or the stripping of citizenship as punishments.
“I didn’t say Third Reich,” Giridharadas responded. “I don’t worry about the desire to criminalize flag burning. I [worry] about the punishment included in that tweet, which was the stripping of citizenship, which is outside the pale.”
“Anand that’s not going to happen,” Scarborough interrupted.
“He is the president-elect of the United States,” Giridharadas continued.
“And the Supreme Court will not, Anand you’re not being rational now,” Scarborough said. I have got to just say this before we go. You’re not being rational if you believe the Supreme Court –”
“I’m not being rational for taking the president-elect of the United States at his word?” Giriharadas said.
“You’re not. Let me finish because you know what I’m going to say and you don’t want me to say it because you know I’m right,” Scarborough continued. “The Supreme Court of the United States of America will never under any circumstances allow anyone to be stripped of their citizenship because they burned the American flag. And if you don’t believe that, you haven’t been reading constitutional law for the past seventy years.”
“And if a president were merely to propose it, for me it would be a tragedy even if it was struck down,” Giriharadas said.
“Well then it is a tragedy then,” Scarborough replied. “But Hitler is not coming back –”
“No one said Hitler is coming back,” Giriharadas said. “But this is how many places that went in dark directions, many places, this was one of the ways in which it started.”
“Okay be careful,” Scarborough replied. “And be careful not to spread fear if it’s not rationally based.”
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