MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Monday that he will tell his network to block any declaration of victory by President Donald Trump during Tuesday night’s presidential election coverage.
“We can assure you — we’re going to be doing coverage on ‘Peacock’ [NBC’s streaming service] — and we can assure you that if Trump goes out and declares victory we will be there to say, ‘don’t take the feed,'” Scarborough said on “Morning Joe.”
“It’s not going to happen. We’re not going to be part of any disinformation campaign by anybody: we’ll be doing coverage from 6 p.m. until midnight or until this thing’s over,” he continued. (RELATED: Pollster: Trump On Track For Reelection With ‘Hidden’ Voter Support)
Scarborough was responding to comments from correspondent Willie Geist who predicted, “It’s going to be a wild night and Donald Trump has already signaled that.”
“He said effectively we’re going to flood the zone with our lawyers, we’re going to send them into Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and we are going to dispute this election,” Geist said.
Geist cited “reports” that Trump is prepared to “go out and declare victory as early as he can on Tuesday night” even though “he will not have won.”
Scarborough agreed and said that the president has promised to “flood the zone in Pennsylvania with lawyers” and that he has “already thanked the United States Supreme Court” for their anticipated cooperation in the event of any legal battles to decide the outcome of the election. (RELATED: Conservative Watchdog: Media Coverage Overwhelmingly Negative For Trump, Positive For Biden)
“He keeps doing it. He’s already talked about the need to get [Justice] Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court so she can rule in his favor on any future election challenges,” Scarborough said.
“Let me quote President Donald Trump himself and say we’ll see what happens,” co-host Mika Brzezinski said.
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally Oct. 29 2020 in Bullhead City, Arizona. (Isaac Brekken/Getty Images)
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Sunday that she expects the Trump vote to “surge” on election day because so many of the president’s supporters prefer to vote in person.
More than 40% of both Trump and Biden supporters are not prepared to accept the defeat of their candidate in the presidential election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in late October.
The latest RealClearPolitics average of polls has Biden leading the race by 6.9% — 51.0% to 44.1%.