“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough is pushing back against attacks from The Blaze, Buzzfeed and a number of other websites that charged he used an out-of-context video clip to mock Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
Scarborough attacked his critics during his Monday morning show, suggesting it had more to do with conspiracy than accountability.
“This began the great debate among the Cheetos brigade as to whether I, who has declared that he is voting for Mitt Romney, is trying to throw the election by doctoring a tape and cracking a joke,” Scarborough said. “Really, guys? Your conspiracy theories are getting out of hand — the poll conspiracy where you have Fox News in the pro-Obama conspiracy camp to throw the election for Barack Obama? It’s getting out of hand. Like, this two-second frenzy is just silly.”
Scarborough cited Hot Air blogger Jazz Shaw as one of the skeptics of the claim that his “Morning Joe” show was playing fast and loose with the clip to bolster his case, then had some harsh words for those that originally called attention to the clip in question.
“Guys, if you want to help Mitt Romney get elected, put down the Cheetos, get out of your mom’s basement and call your friends. And tell them why Mitt Romney should be president. Because these conspiracy theories aren’t helping Mitt, Paul [Ryan] or the Republican Party. And at the end of the day it makes them silly,” he continued.
Scarborough defended his staff and dared conservatives to boycott, as the left has threatened to do in the past.
“Seriously, by the way, people going, ‘I’m going to boycott you,’” Scarborough said. “You know what, please do boycott us because the liberals who have boycotted us after I called the stimulus ‘a steaming pile of garbage,’ after I was against Obamacare, after I said the president didn’t deliver his speech well and [they] said I was a bigot. Your boycotts have helped us have our best month ever. So if we can get a boycott from the right as well as the left, I think we’re going to be in great shape. Our numbers are going to keep exploding upward.”