MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough rebuked former President Donald Trump on Monday for saying Capitol rioters were “hugging and kissing” police officers while storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Scarborough discussed the comments with co-host Mika Brzezinski during the broadcast of “Morning Joe,” and accused Trump of lying and “throwing police officers under the bus.” (RELATED: ‘The Left Is Happy To Use The Race Card’: Sen. Ron Johnson Pushes Back On Claims His Capitol Riot Comments Were ‘Racist’)
Brzezinski began the conversation by reading some of Trump’s comments, which were part of a Thursday interview on Fox News. She noted that Trump also said the rioters “posed zero threat to lawmakers,” and then called his comments “sick.”
“That’s just shocking. What do you say to the families of those police officers who are dead, and who were beaten and abused by American flags, and had their head shoved in like a vice into doors?” Scarborough responded. “How sick can you be, denying that and hating police officers so much, hating cops so much, that you’re willing to say something like that?”
Brzezinski then played a video clip of Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney criticizing the former president for making the claim, saying that he was “surprised” to hear him say that, and calling it “manifestly false.” He added, “I don’t know how you can say that when people were killed.”
“The lie continues. You have Donald Trump saying this, basically throwing police officers under the bus, suggesting that they were never in danger, that they were treated wonderfully, when we know the horrors that they had to endure,” Scarborough said after the video.
He went on to make the comparison that Trump’s assessment was like saying Islamic extremists on 9/11 “treated the pilots very well.” He then said that police officers at the Capitol on the day of the riot were “brutalized with American flags” and had “their heads shoved into doors.” He also mentioned police officer Bryan Sicknick, who died after being sprayed with bear spray.
“This is so deeply offensive to these police officers and their families to pretend this never happened,” Scarborough continued.
He concluded by noting the screaming police officer stuck in a doorway seen in footage from the riot. “Do you hear the screaming and the agony from that police officer?” he asked.