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NBCU NEWS GROUP TO PROVIDE IN-DEPTH COVERAGE OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE – ONE YEAR SINCE RUSSIA’S INVASION – WITH SPECIAL PROGRAMMING ACROSS BROADCAST, CABLE AND STREAMING

NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell to Sit Down with VP Kamala Harris in Munich for an Exclusive Interview

‘On Assignment with Richard Engel: Ukraine’s Secret Resistance’ to Air Friday, Feb. 24 at 10 p.m. on MSNBC

NBC News Senior International Correspondent Keir Simmons to Anchor ‘Inside Russia: The World’ and ‘Putin’s War’ on NBC News NOW

MSNBC Chief Correspondent Ali Velshi to Host ‘VELSHI’ Live from Ukraine

‘Morning Joe’ One-Hour Primetime Special Hosted by Joe Scarborough to Air Thursday, Feb. 23 on MSNBC

Feb. 17, 2023  – Marking one year since Russia invaded Ukraine,  NBC News ,  MSNBC ,  NBC News NOW , and  NBC News Digital  will examine the ongoing fight in the region, the global implications of the conflict, and feature interviews with U.S. leaders on what the next year looks like.

• Today, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent  Andrea Mitchell  will sit down with Vice President Kamala Harris for an exclusive interview in Munich, Germany airing on  MSNBC’s  Andrea Mitchell Reports  at  12 p.m. ET  and across platforms. Mitchell will also report on the St. Nicholas Cathedral School in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, which has become a sanctuary for Ukrainian families fleeing the war. 
• Beginning  Saturday, Feb. 18  through  Sunday Feb. 26 , MSNBC Chief Correspondent and Host of  VELSHI ,  Ali Velshi  will be on the ground in Ukraine reporting across  MSNBC . He will host  All In With Chris Hayes  at 8 p.m. ET from Ukraine, as well as his show  VELSHI , airing Saturday and Sundays at 10 a.m. ET.
• NBC News Chief White House Correspondent  Kristen Welker , NBC News Foreign Correspondent  Josh Lederman , NBC News Senior White House Reporter  Peter Nicholas , and NBC News Channel Correspondent  Jay Gray  will report from Poland.
• NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent  Richard Engel  and NBC News Correspondent  Erin McLaughlin  will be on the ground in Ukraine. 
• NBC News Senior International Correspondent  Keir Simmons  will be reporting from Moscow, Russia.
• NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent  Andrea Mitchell  and NBC News Pentagon Correspondent  Courtney Kube  will be reporting from the Munich Security Conference in Germany. 
• On  Thursday, Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. ET ,  MSNBC  will air an hour-long  Morning Joe   special hosted by  Joe Scarborough,  featuring interviews with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
• On  Friday, Feb. 24 ,  MSNBC’s  On Assignment with Richard Engel  is dedicating a full hour to the war in Ukraine, featuring Engel’s on-the-ground reporting from the region throughout the year. “Ukraine’s Secret Resistance” tells the stories of three friends who joined Ukraine’s underground movement to secretly fight back against the Russian army. The new episode will air at  10 p.m. ET  on  MSNBC  and stream on  Peacock .
• On  NBC News NOW ,  Keir Simmons  will anchor two documentary specials, “Inside Russia: The World” and “Putin’s War,” looking at the impact of the war on Russians from on the ground in Moscow.
• Plus, throughout the week, across all platforms,  Richard Engel  will update on the status of the war one year later, where things stand and how the U.S. shaped the conflict.  Erin McLaughlin will visit Ukrainians she had met at the beginning of the war and share an update on their life a year later, including Ukraine’s battlefield ballerinas.
• NBC News Digital  will publish deep dive features, follow-up reporting and photo essays to mark one year of the war in Ukraine.

For more information contact :

Joya Manasseh NBC News e:  [email protected]

Evening Work for ‘Morning Joe’? MSNBC Trio Mulls Primetime Specials

By Brian Steinberg

Brian Steinberg

Senior TV Editor

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After taking over a fourth hour of MSNBC ’s morning schedule, Joe Scarborough , Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist are eyeing real estate in primetime.

Should “ Morning Joe ” fans get ready for an occasional jolt of “Evening Joe”?

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Other top MSNBC personalities are reaching outside the political-news sphere. Nicolle Wallace, who holds down two hours on the afternoon schedule, recently launched a four-part miniseries for NBCU’s Peacock streaming hub that examined mental health issues and featured candid interviews with celebrities. 

As the trio seek to get broader, one significant rival with inside knowledge of how “Joe” works is testing a similar gambit. “CNN This Morning,” which launched Nov. 1 and airs opposite “Morning Joe,” is also looking beyond politics: Co-hosts Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins will report on everything from international news to Taylor Swift’s performance on the pop charts. The retooled morning program was put into motion by CNN CEO Chris Licht, who helped launch “Morning Joe” when MSNBC was seeking a replacement for radio jock Don Imus’ show in 2007.

Is “Morning Joe” facing a “Morning Joe 2.0” in CNN’s new A.M. offering? The originals don’t think so. The team has its own guiding light, says Brzezinski: Alex Korson, MSNBC’s vice president of morning programming, who has been with “Morning Joe” since 2008, and has been its executive producer for 11 years — twice as long as Licht was. “He’s a savant,” says Brzezinski.

And they probably won’t be watching their competition regularly. “It’s tough. It can be a hard slog for some people that may have done an hour in primetime,” says Scarborough, who says the MSNBC team is “going to be competing against ourselves.” As for Licht, says Scarborough, he “is a good friend of mine. I have rooted for him every step of the way. I’ll be rooting for him slightly less in this new job,” he says, jokingly.

There’s also a risk that if Trump or his supporters come back into office that “Morning Joe” may face a more difficult news environment. “In some ways,” says Brzezinski, “I think we are entering a more serious time than ever before.”

The anchors took some blows during the Trump era. Media watchers may recall a 2017 episode when the then-President went on a tirade on Twitter against the hosts because of the way some of his actions were discussed on the MSNBC program, which is popular among the Capitol Hill set. In the future, says Scarborough, the hosts intend to be more “mindful” of the rhetoric thrown their way. “We understand that what Donald Trump wants and what some of his acolytes want [is for] us to be shocked, stunned and deeply sad, and we aren’t going to play that game anymore.” Instead, he adds, “we are going to report on it.”

If the anchors extend their reach from morning routine to primetime specials, they may have a whole “Morning Joe” universe they can explore.

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Where Is Joe Scarborough From MSNBC?

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," has been absent from his show this week, leading fans to wonder where the ex-politician and well-liked political commentator is hiding out and why he's taking a break from his show. "Where has Morning Joe been this week?" asked one Twitter user  yesterday.

Scarborough has done this before — in fact, he took some days off last year at around the same time, a fact which was corroborated by his wife and co-host, Mika Brzezinski, in a series of tweets ( via The Wrap ). However, this time around, it doesn't look like the network or others have confirmed what's going on, which has viewers worried. One of the broadcasts this week noted (via The Focus) that the long-time TV personality had the morning off, which frustrated certain fans. "Rather than saying Joe is off 'this morning,' why not just say he's on vacation or he's won't be back until a certain day. It's not that hard," posted @ClassicSophie on Monday, July 19. 

It sounds like fans basically want to know their favorite TV presenter is okay. "Do we know where Joe is? Unless I missed it, Mika hasn't said anything about him being out for days???,"  @AsiRam323 said in response to one of the show's tweets. "Is he ok?" asked @AANABA3 in a similar reply to an official tweet . 

He's still on social media, but is he leaving?

The good news is that, although he doesn't seem to have reappeared on the show yet, Scarborough is still on social media. On July 20, he posted an Instagram image of his wife in her garden, which implies he was able to get outside. He's been pretty busy on Twitter, but someone else could be posting for him. However, the posts sound like him — he added a number of new ones on July 20, including one that makes you think he's listening to  the Rolling Stones . Most of his posts since that day have been retweets, though, so it's hard to say. 

Still, the lack of any official word is confusing his fans even more. "WOW. They don't even mention Joe on Morning Joe anymore. Where is he? Will he be back?" asked @MStumpo . Even fans who don't appear to like him are curious. "it's so much more pleasant without Joe. Where is Joe?" one viewer, @gggirl24, asked today .

Adding to the problem, Capitol Hill correspondent Kasie Hunt left MSNBC and NBC News and her show " Way Too Early with Kasie Hunt" last week, announcing on TV and on Twitter that July 16 would be her last broadcast. She is apparently moving to CNN, according to Variety . CNN has been making moves to amp up its news operation in anticipation of a move to streaming outlets , leading some to wonder if Scarborough might be also on the verge of leaving his long-time gig. 

If he's taking some time off, he'll likely be back soon. If not, hopefully MSNBC, his wife, or another source will make an announcement to clarify what's going on.

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Msnbc’s joe scarborough: ‘the trend lines are all breaking joe biden’s way’.

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ATLANTA, GEORGIA - APRIL 10: Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he arrives ... [+] at the Atlanta Airport on April 10, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Trump is visiting Atlanta for a campaign fundraising event he is hosting. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough suggested Thursday that former President Donald Trump might be so discouraged by President Biden’s standing in recent polls that he “probably would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.”

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe , Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski discussed a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showing Biden leading Trump 41% to 37%, with Biden gaining ground against Trump in January, while Trump’s support declined.

The pollsters noted that nearly two-thirds of registered voters (64%) said Trump’s upcoming trial for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels was “serious, including 36% who say (the charges are) very serious.”

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - APRIL 10: People watch as former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at the ... [+] Atlanta Airport on April 10, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. Trump is visiting Atlanta for a campaign fundraising event he is hosting. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)

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The Reuters/Ipsos poll also found that two-thirds of Americans believe it is risk for Trump to become president or receive classified national security briefings, with that sentiment being shared by Democrats and Republicans. The poll found 24% of Republicans say they would not vote for Trump if he was convicted of a felony by a jury, and 37% say they wouldn’t vote for him if he was serving time in prison at the time of the election.

“We always talk about the trend lines and the trend lines are all breaking Joe Biden’s way,” Scarborough said. “I mean, if you look at the top of Drudge,” referring to the online Drudge Report, which carried a banner headline Thursday ‘Biden Beating Trump in Majority of Polls.’

“If you’re Trump, you would probably jump off the Brooklyn Bridge because he’s, like, MAGA meltdown, and talking about the polls breaking in Joe Biden’s way,” Scarborough said, noting that some Republicans began tiring of Trump’s drama and legal woes while he was still in the White House.

“I think (Trump’s) great challenge is just the sense of exhaustion,” Scarborough said. “I was hearing from Trumpers in 2020 saying ‘I’m so exhausted by this guy. Every day it’s a different fight.’ That was before January 6.”

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While speaking Thursday at the National Action Network Convention, Joe Scarborough addresses voters who would consider Trump in 2024. April 12, 2024

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Why could trump be convicted in ny lies and tabloid schemes, says insider.

'Morning Joe' Nails 'Deeply Offensive' Part Of Trump Calling Jan. 6 Rioters 'Hostages'

General Assignment Reporter, HuffPost

Joe Scarborough on Friday accused Donald Trump of taking insensitivity to a new level ― and that’s saying something. (Watch the video below.)

Scarborough and other hosts on “Morning Joe” were aghast at Trump describing imprisoned Jan. 6 rioters as “hostages” at a Houston rally the day before.

Willie Geist called the former president’s remarks “repulsive,” citing the attacks on police and desecration of the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, siege to overturn a fair election.

Scarborough searched for an even deeper rebuke, and found it in the Israelis kidnapped by Hamas during a massacre that has triggered a war. Hundreds of captives , including some Americans, are now believed to be held by militants in Gaza as tensions and deaths mount amid an Israeli offensive.

“How deeply offensive that Donald Trump has now moved from calling these people, these thugs, ‘political prisoners’ to now comparing them to Jews who were ripped out of their homes,” Scarborough said.

“Jews ripped out of their homes on the 7th [of October], beaten up, bludgeoned, grandmothers thrown on the back of pickup trucks and taken underground by Hamas terrorists,” Scarborough went on, per Mediaite . “And they’re the hostages.”

Scarborough continued his takedown as he addressed another colleague.

“The world is talking about the hostages, Jonathan Lemire, and Donald Trump uses this time to compare those thugs that were beating up police officers with American flags, to compare them to Jews who were ripped from their homes, raped, beaten, so many killed, but also so many taken to underground tunnels by a terrorist organization,” Scarborough said.

“Trump’s comments would be deeply offensive at any time, but particularly now, considering the uncertain fate of those hostages in Gaza at this moment,” Lemire replied.

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Bret Stephens

Netanyahu Must Go

By Bret Stephens

Opinion Columnist

It’s no secret to readers of this column where I stand on Israel’s war in Gaza.

Israel must destroy Hamas as a military and political force in the territory while minimizing harm to civilians. It must do what it can to rescue its hostages without jeopardizing the overriding goal of destroying Hamas. It must, by diplomacy or force, push Hezbollah back from Lebanon’s southern border, so that 60,000 Israelis can return safely to their homes in the north. It must take the battle directly, as it did last week in Damascus, to Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s patrons, whether in Syria, Qatar or Iran.

And for all of that to happen effectively, Benjamin Netanyahu must go.

I’ve written versions of this column before , but Netanyahu’s disastrous engagement with Hamas before it carried out the Oct. 7 massacre and his conduct of the war since have made it vital. The need was again made painfully obvious last Thursday, when Nir Barkat, a center-right Israeli minister and former Jerusalem mayor, got destroyed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe .” Barkat is a decent and courageous man who could be a credible future prime minister. But he crumbled when the program’s host Joe Scarborough challenged him to explain Netanyahu’s policies before Oct. 7.

Why — to paraphrase Scarborough and his co-hosts — was Netanyahu asking Qatar to fund Hamas to the tune of hundreds of millions just weeks before the massacre? Why was the bulk of the Israeli military nowhere near Gaza in the first hours of the attack? Why does the Israeli government have such fumbling answers when it comes to legitimate humanitarian needs in Gaza?

Barkat offered, feebly, that the policy had been mistaken and that everything would be investigated after the war. When an Israeli minister is forced to humiliate himself on American TV because he can muster neither the sophistry nor the servility that a smoother answer would require, it’s a sign he’s in the wrong government.

Where does Israel find itself after six months of war? Not in a good place. Netanyahu and his generals keep insisting, Westmoreland-like , that victory in Gaza is around the corner while providing tallies of Hamas fighters killed.

But Hamas isn’t defeated and Israeli soldiers have been forced to recapture the same places — like Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital — that were supposed to have been cleared of terrorists months ago. Only a handful of hostages have been rescued and many of those who remain are presumed dead . The perception of Israeli invincibility and competence has been shattered. As my colleague David French has noted, the approach that Israel has employed in Gaza in recent months — destroying the enemy but ignoring civilian needs for security and basic necessities — replicates the strategy that led to disaster in the early years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The strike last week that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers was surely an accident, much like the U.S. strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan in 2015 that killed 42 people. But the command-and-control failures that produced the W.C.K. tragedy show that Israel’s military leadership doesn’t realize they can’t afford those kinds of fiascos, as other militaries can. A double standard, but that’s another reality under which Israel has always operated.

Netanyahu may not bear direct blame for the W.C.K. deaths. But he bears the ultimate one, just as he does for everything that led to Oct. 7 — funding Hamas and ignoring warnings of its plans to attack , bringing far-right rabble-rousers into his government and giving them key positions in the security establishment, polarizing the country with an unnecessary judicial reform bill and dismissing repeated warnings of diminished military readiness . In a thousand years, Jews will remember Netanyahu’s name with scorn — all the more so for his refusal to take responsibility for anything.

Now he makes the argument that there should be no change in government till the war ends. That argument looks increasingly self-serving the longer the war drags out.

It’s also a bad argument. Parliamentary democracies that find themselves saddled with bad leaders in moments of national emergency do well when they get rid of those leaders. That’s what Britain did in World War I when it cashiered H.H. Asquith in favor of David Lloyd George, and in World War II when it got rid of Neville Chamberlain in favor of Winston Churchill. Netanyahu might aspire to be Winston, but is really more of a Neville, whose bad deals with bad guys led to bad things.

It’s dangerous for a country at war to be led by someone the people neither support nor trust. Seventy-one percent of Israelis want Netanyahu booted from office, according to polls released Sunday , and 66 percent want elections called early, which could happen if a handful of members of the ruling coalition defected. Wishing Netanyahu gone is the most mainstream position possible — and one sincere friends of Israel should never be afraid to express.

I hope Barkat reflects on his “Morning Joe” embarrassment and asks whether sticking by his party’s leader is a price he’s willing to pay. I hope other senior members in Israel’s government also consider their sense of national responsibility above their political positions. Israel cannot afford to lose this war. But it needs to lose a leader who isn’t winning it.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Bret Stephens is an Opinion columnist for The Times, writing about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. Facebook

'Weak and desperate' Trump 'flip-flopping' on biggest policy platforms: Morning Joe

M SNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Donald Trump's efforts to deflect from his complicity in rolling back abortion rights and his attempts to kill the the landmark health care law signed by former president Barack Obama.

The ex-president on Thursday denied that he was "running to terminate" Obamacare, which he has explicitly tried to do since entering politics, and the "Morning Joe" host ridiculed Trump's efforts to wriggle away from that unpopular position and the deeply unpopular Arizona abortion ban that came in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn abortion rights.

"Donald Trump did this, and he did, and the consequences are absolutely terrible for women and also for Republican candidates ," Scarborough said. "That's the message, that's what the Biden campaign said. It is simple and powerful. I think we'll hear 'Donald Trump did this' about a lot of issues as the year goes on, including those connected to the assaults on the democracy Jan. 6."

Want more breaking political news? Click for the latest headlines at Raw Story.

"Also, Donald Trump, and we'll be talking about this, too, he is desperately trying to run away from all the times he said he wanted to do away with Obamacare," Scarborough said. "Now he's saying, 'No, no, forget what I said about John McCain going like this, maybe, maybe I like Obamacare.' He's flip-flopping . He just looks so weak and desperate right now."

READ MORE: A criminologist explains why Trump’s Manhattan trial is the biggest threat to his freedom

Biden called for the expansion of a subsidy boost under the Affordable Care Act that's set to expire after next year and warned that Trump wanted to end that law altogether, which the former president insisted wasn't true, despite years of evidence to the contrary.

"In a Truth Social video yesterday, he tried to say, 'I'm for Obamacare, I just want to change it,'" said MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire. "We can fact-check that, a thousand times he said he wanted to overturn it. Donald Trump did this. As much as the Biden administration knows they have to put forward a positive message, so much of what they'll say between now and November is, 'Look, this is what Trump did, he has changed your life, taken your freedoms and threatened to do more.'"

Watch the video below or at this link .

MSNBC 04 12 2024 06 13 01 youtu.be

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No, 'Morning Joe' host Mika Brzezinski wasn't talking about Elon Musk in 2017 video | Fact check

The claim: Mika Brzezinski said Elon Musk is ‘trying to control what people think’

A March 2 Instagram post ( direct link , archive link ) shows a clip of “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski speaking during a segment of the MSNBC show while her co-host and husband Joe Scarborough and other panelists listen.

“He could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think, and that is – that is our job,” she says. 

The text at the top of the video shows part of Brzezinski's quote and inserts Tesla CEO Elon Musk's first name, indicating she’s talking about him.

The post was liked over 78,000 times in more than a month. 

More from the Fact-Check Team: How we pick and research claims | Email newsletter | Facebook page

Our rating: False

Brzezinski's comments were made in 2017 and were in reference to then-President Donald Trump, not Musk. She said later that day that her comments about controlling what people think had been misconstrued.

'Morning Joe' 2017 roundtable was discussing Trump approval rating

The clip featured in the post comes from a February 2017 episode of "Morning Joe" in which Brzezinski and Scarborough hosted a roundtable discussion on Trump’s approval rating and how Americans felt about the federal government based on a poll at that time. Musk is not mentioned in the discussion.

Brzezinski's comments came after Scarborough and a panelist discussed how Trump supporters believed then-president Trump was fulfilling the promises he campaigned on.

"Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts," said Brzezinski. "And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job."

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Her comments drew criticism , and she wrote later that day on Twitter (now known as X) that her statement was misinterpreted.

“Today I said it’s the media’s job to keep President Trump from making up his own facts, NOT that it’s our job to control what people think,” she wrote. 

She followed up in an additional post , writing, “Of course, that is obvious from the transcript but some people want to make up their own facts. SAD!”

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Our fact-check sources:

• MSNBC, Feb. 22, 2017, Anger, dissatisfaction at federal government, poll shows
• National Review, Feb. 24, 2017, The Press Is Not the Enemy
• Mika Brzezisnki, Feb. 22, 2017, Twitter post

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or e-newspaper here .

USA TODAY is a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network, which requires a demonstrated commitment to nonpartisanship, fairness and transparency. Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Meta .

‘Morning Joe’ Blasts Ilhan Omar Committee Removal as ‘Crazy’ Hypocrisy: Republicans ‘Have Damaged Congress’ (Video)

Joe Scarborough argues the Minnesota Democrat already apologized for statements that were “far less egregious than what we hear from Donald Trump”

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough railed against the Republican party on Friday after 218 House GOP members voted to remove Minnesota’s Democratic representative Ilhan Omar from her assignment on the Foreign Affairs Committee over previous antisemitic comments.

The segment opened with a montage of comments from several Democratic lawmakers who defended Omar, including representative from New York Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. During her speech, AOC argued actions and comments from Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene as being far worse than Omar’s.

“She actually had somebody, Gosar, threatening her life, glorifying an image of her getting her head chopped off in a cartoon,” Scarborough said, illustrating how Gosar and Taylor Greene’s behavior was more abhorrent than Omar’s. “Then you go down the MTG things, the killing, the decapitating — well, the — all the other things, and the space lasers financed by Jewish families. Of course, of course, she’s holding a gun. I think it was an AR-15 in an ad … [She] said that she needed to go on the offensive against ‘the Squad,’ and there was a picture of Ilhan Omar, AOC.”

“The hypocrisy is absolutely crazy,” he continued. “Congressman Omar made a couple of statements that were considered antisemitic. She apologized for them. I must say, they certainly were no worse and I would say far less egregious than what we hear from Donald Trump, what we hear from Donald Trump’s dinner guests, what we’ve been hearing from the Republican party over the past five, six years, what we hear coming out of Charlottesville. This is not a close call.”

Guest panelist Michael Steele argued that the move to oust Omar is “Kevin McCarthy’s payback” and “retributive politics.”

“There could’ve been nothing said, there could’ve been nothing done to prevent this from happening because it was ordained by Marjorie Taylor Green and others in the Freedom Caucus that if you become speaker you take her out. If you become speaker, you take out [Eric] Swalwell and others,” Steele said. “So the reality that we have done this, that’s a check box, that retribution that’s been paid back.”

He then argued that voters allowed Omar’s removal to happen by putting Republicans in power.

“I’m not letting people off the hook here,” he said. “You knew it was going to happen, they told you what they were going to do and you voted for them anyway … These members are there because the American people put them there and you get the consequences from their behavior when you vote for it.”

While Scarborough acknowledged that he’s disagreed with statements from AOC and Omar, he emphasized that debate is “how we get better as a people.”

“They have damaged Congress by doing this and they have made it an intellectually weaker place to work,” he concluded of the Republican party.

Watch the full “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.