Politics

Joe Scarborough Uses Krauthammer’s Death To … Attack Trump

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough published an opinion column memorializing renowned Fox News contributor and Pulitzer Prize winner Charles Krauthammer on Friday, and made great use of the opportunity to attack President Donald Trump.

He wrote for NBC News Think, “Krauthammer loathed the corrosive impact of President Donald Trump on a conservative movement he himself spent his adult life defending. His last year as a columnist was spent processing the awfulness of Trumpism.”

Scarborough offered praise for Krauthammer’s “extraordinary life,” noting that he had certainly “shaped the views of a generation of conservatives.” He recalled a commencement speech that Krauthammer gave at his own alma mater, McGill University, urging students to not give in to ideological whims. “Another day, another fever,” he told them, warning them not to fall victim to what he called the “apocalypse du jour.”

(RELATED: Time Reporter: ‘I Always Wanted To Thank Mr. Krauthammer For That, And Am Ashamed That I Never Did’)

But throughout Scarborough’s tribute was a smattering of attacks on President Donald Trump — some in Krauthammer’s words and some in his own.

Beginning with an anecdote about his own father’s passing, Scarborough noted with sadness that, when Krauthammer passed away at the age of 68 on Thursday, there was no assurance that “the good guys were winning, the bad guys were losing and justice was being served.”

He quoted an August, 2016 Krauthammer column that read, “I used to think Trump was an 11-year-old, an undeveloped schoolyard bully. I was off by about 10 years.”

Scarborough, citing Trump’s “constant attacks on Democratic norms,” noted that Krauthammer’s response had been much more measured. “The system lives,” he had said.

Scarborough concluded with a reference to the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that Krauthammer’s advice — though sound — could be hard to follow “in these days of dread.” He wrote,  “That may seem like a tall order in these days of dread, when infants and toddlers are locked out of sight by the centralized state like captured al Qaeda terrorists were following September 11. But Charles Krauthammer’s body of work reminds us that James Madison’s checks and balances will protect the Republic from Trump’s worst instincts and guide us into a glimmering new era where we will possess the God-given freedom to panic about the next apocalypse du jour.”