Could it be possible that Joe Scarborough and Donald Trump have finally broken up?
Morning Joe has done more than any other TV show to legitimize Donald Trump's candidacy, relentlessly pushing the narrative that Trump was unstoppable.
Jonah Goldberg put it well in the blog linked above: for months on end, Mika and Joe were like Mean Girls whenever anyone dared to take on their good buddy.
But the recent flood of articles, editorials, and blogs about Trump's manifest unfitness for office has seemed to nudge them to start criticizing Joe's longtime pal and the show's frequent phone guest.
However, early this week you could still find Joe defending Trump, this time against charges of racism. Trump of course, with his love of hyperbole, had said that he's the "least racist person" you'll ever meet. But you can't trust much of anything he says. As Mary McCarthy put it about rival author Lillian Hellman: "every word...is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."
Joe's take on the question of racism and Trump was pretty simple: if someone said something racist at a dinner, Trump would raise an eyebrow.
Isn't that a stirring example of tolerance and courage?
He didn't say Trump would call that person out, or even leave the dinner in disgust. Trump would just raise an eyebrow, like Maggie Smith on Downton Abbey expressing disdain for some newfangled concept she disapproves of on principle.
As Trump likes to end his angry tweets: Pathetic!
Last week people talked about a GOP "intervention" to get Trump on message. It seemed Joe himself was needing an intervention himself. He was starting to feel like Jack telling Ennis in Brokeback Mountain "I wish I knew how to quit you!"
But Trump's implicit death threat against Hillary Clinton apparently pushed him over the edge. Now he's saying Trump should be removed as nominee.
The former Trump stooge doesn't even know that it's impossible. His long-time pal has to voluntarily step down. Given that Trump never apologizes, never admits he's wrong, does Joe honestly think that's going to happen? It's as likely as Joe apologizing for having boosted Trump's candidacy for so long.....
Whatever happens, Trump is right now not happy with Morning Joe, tweeting in his signature style:
Morning Joe's weakness is its low ratings. I don't watch anymore but I heard he went wild against Rudy Giuliani and #2A - sad & irrelevant!
No, Donald, its weakness was sucking up to you.
Lev Raphael is the author of the thriller Assault With a Deadly Lie and 24 other books in genres from memoir to horror which you can find on Amazon.