On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe welcomed one of their old regulars to the conversation – “Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley” – who won for the movie 12 Years a Slave. The first subject was the hotly contested April election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, since Ridley’s a Milwaukee native. He made wild claims about how Republicans were “luxuriating” in suppressing black votes in Milwaukee during the midterms. (That’s a major stretch.)
But then Willie Geist changed the subject to black Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (an elected Democrat) possibly indicting Donald Trump. Geist asked Ridley how he hears the term “weaponization” of government coming from the Jim Jordans of the world.
Ridley offered bluster about slavery and segregation and Japanese internment camps and Ron DeSantis crushing history lessons. Then he rushed to defend Bragg and objected to Jordan and Kevin McCarthy making any demands on Bragg to answer questions about his Trump indictment (if and when it happens).
RIDLEY: You know, you have Kevin McCarthy, you have Jim Jordan saying ‘Hey, we want you to come in’ – and they’re saying this to Alvin Bragg, ‘come in and answer questions.’ That’s what the court is for. And I have a bigger problem – again, I’m not trying to be hyperbolic, but when you have the Kevin McCarthys of the world say to the black prosecutor ‘you need to come in and answer questions’ — I’m sorry, we’re not living on the plantation any more. He has no right, no reason to ask this individual to come in and answer questions when that is what the court is for. That is what juries are for, that is what evidence is for, what grand juries are for. Not for Kevin Mccarthy. Not for Jim Jordan. Who by the way, when they’re asked to answer questions, when you literally see a white riot and they don’t want to talk about that, don’t switch the game on us. Don’t flip the script.
After Ridley speechified about how he and his family members love America, Scarborough launched into another long rant about how “snowflake Republicans” that were so “triggered” by losing one election that “they are ready to say the hell with America. We hate America.”
SCARBOROUGH: These snowflakes in the Republican Party are triggered because they lose one election. They lose the 2020 election, and suddenly they hate the military. Ted Cruz says I wish we could be more like the Russians. They hate the Pentagon. Fox News says they’re going to use helicopters that killed people in Afghanistan and bring them to America to kill us here. They hate law enforcement. They use American flags to beat the hell out of cops. They say the FBI is going to kick down doors and kill Americans that voted for Trump. They lie about IRS agents saying they are going to Iowa to kick down doors with AR-15s and kill small business owners.
John, they act this way because they lost one presidential election. They’re ready to say – and I can’t, I’ll just say they are ready to say the hell with America. We hate America. We hate American institutions because we lost one election.
Scarborough has zero fear of fact checkers when he unleashes all his mental effluvia.
This rambling about GOP racists and snowflakes was brought to you in part by 4Imprint, Etsy, and Roman.
The transcript is below.
Morning Joe
March 21, 2023
7:54 amGEIST: Want to get your smart brain on the bigger stuff we’ve been talking about this morning as well. We’ve got a Manhattan D.A. potentially going to indict Donald Trump. We’ve got a case down in Georgia as well with the Fulton County D.A down there. We’ve got the January 6, we’ve got the Mar-a-lago documents all out in front of this former president – and also now, a House of Representatives controlled by Republicans who are looking to rally a defense around Donald Trump, talking about quote, “weaponization” of the federal government, the weaponization of a district attorney’s office. What do you hear when you hear that term?
JOHN RIDLEY: Yeah, I’m going to try to be very, very calm, and Joe, Mika, Willie – you know I’ve been writing about policing and community going back to an article I wrote in Esquire. People may have challenged the direction I came from, they never challenged the facts. When I hear – and I want to be careful how I say this, because I don’t want to paint with a wide brush or try to indict all white folks. But when I hear from privileged white men talking about the weaponization of the law they don’t know what they are talking about. [Supportive Mika sigh]
As a person of color, as a black man, the law has been weaponized against us going back to the constitution and being considered three-fifths of human beings. What do you call slavery? What do you call failed Reconstruction? Jim Crow. Segregation. If you are an Asian American, the Chinese exclusion act. That’s weaponization. Executive order 9066 is weaponization. I’m not gonna explain what that is [Franklin Roosevelt’s order on Japanese-American internment]. I’m sure professor Ron DeSantis will tell you all about that. If he won’t, you won’t read about it [in] books in school.
But individuals talking about the weaponization? As black and brown people we’re told that part of the problem with negative interactions between community and police is because we don’t comply. We don’t listen. We don’t appreciate law enforcement. We don’t care about this country. But the moment that the process is in play, as it should – I don’t know if Donald Trump is guilty or not, but I know that the court of law is where an individual goes to literally have their day. And when it happens to them, when the process is presented, all of a sudden, whoa! It’s being weaponized! It’s being turned against me!
You know, you have Kevin McCarthy, you have Jim Jordan saying ‘Hey, we want you to come in’ – and they’re saying this to Alvin Bragg, ‘come in and answer questions.’ That’s what the court is for. And I have a bigger problem – again, I’m not trying to be hyperbolic, but when you have the Kevin McCarthys of the world say to the black prosecutor ‘you need to come in and answer questions’ — I’m sorry, we’re not living on the plantation any more. He has no right, no reason to ask this individual to come in and answer questions when that is what the court is for. That is what juries are for, that is what evidence is for, what grand juries are for. Not for Kevin Mccarthy. Not for Jim Jordan. Who by the way, when they’re asked to answer questions, when you literally see a white riot and they don’t want to talk about that, don’t switch the game on us. Don’t flip the script.
8:00 am
JOE SCARBOROUGH: But like you said, there’s a lot to love about this country, you love this country. I find it remarkable that the Americans who have the least reason to love this country given what they have been through for the better part of 200 years, black women were the ones that stepped up in Atlanta, stepped up in Philadelphia, stepped up in Detroit, stepped up in Milwaukee, stepped up all over America and actually saved — here’s the great irony. They saved Madisonian democracy. They had the least of reasons, given how this country treated the, and yet they love America. Like your father loves America. And we have other people on who talk about this, whose parents served in the military, and they didn’t hate America. They love America, through it all. Proud to be Americans, proud to serve in the uniforms, proud to wave the flag.
And yet! These snowflakes in the Republican Party are triggered because they lose one election. They lose the 2020 election, and suddenly they hate the military. Ted Cruz says I wish we could be more like the Russians. They hate the Pentagon. Fox News says they’re going to use helicopters that killed people in Afghanistan and bring them to America to kill us here. They hate law enforcement. They use American flags to beat the hell out of cops. They say the FBI is going to kick down doors and kill Americans that voted for Trump. They lie about IRS agents saying they are going to Iowa to kick down doors with AR-15s and kill small business owners. John, they act this way because they lost one presidential election. They’re ready to say – and I can’t, I’ll just say they are ready to say the hell with America. We hate America. We hate American institutions because we lost one election. And yet, these people you speak of, your family, the black women that came out and helped defeat a guy who wanted to quote, ‘terminate the Constitution,’ they still love America. They still love America! It’s a remarkable story.