‘THIS IS INSANE!’ Morning Joe Crew Goes Off on Trump Allegedly Calling For Executions of Staffers

Morning Joe covered an “insane” story from former Trump communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin , who said on the latest episode of Mediaite’s Press Club podcast that the ex-president had called for the execution of a White House staffer.

The Washington Post ‘s Eugene Robinson was a guest on Morning Joe on Monday, a few days after his op-ed questioning former President Donald Trump’s state of mind. MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski discussed how the latest story about the temperament of someone who would impulsively call for the execution of a White House staffer over a press leak should come into play as the general election nears.

Specifically, the co-hosts and panel discussed former Attorney General Bill Barr claiming that Trump was merely “blowing off steam” when he called for the execution. During an April interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins , Barr also said he didn’t remember Trump saying such things, but also “wouldn’t dispute it.”

Despite that claim from Barr, Farah Griffin said on Press Club that the meeting wasn’t the only time Trump called for executions.

Scarborough: So, Gene, let’s get this right. The Attorney General of the United States–

Robinson: Yeah.

Scarborough: Heard the commander-in-chief calling for the execution of staff members.

Robinson: Yeah.

Scarborough: And then when he is asked about it, after he’s made clear that he is going to endorse for president the man who is calling for the execution of staff members, because I guess Barr is shocked and stunned by Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan. That’s where they always run to. “Oh, well, if think January 6th was bad, and calling for the execution of staff members are bad, what about Joe Biden’s three-tier plan to relieve students of their debt?” Which they actually do. They actually, that’s their go-to. “You think January 6th was bad?” But here we have a guy who is Attorney General, a lawyer… Can I just tell you, lawyers, I, you know, I’m not even a good lawyer. But you get lawyers in conversations — they remember things. They have the Dictaphone going, they’ve got it going in their heads. And you hear something like that. You were trained for your mind to set that apart. Okay, the President of United States just said we should execute staffers for leaking.

Robinson: Yeah.

Scarborough: I mean, what Barr says is so laughable. And what Alyssa said is so chilling–

Robinson: So scary.

Scarborough: That we actually have Republicans — so scary. We actually have Republicans that are going to go out and endorse a guy who called for the execution of fellow staff members and then claims he doesn’t remember it.

Taking the macro view of the story got Robinson to a point of near-exasperation:

Yeah. “Yeah, I don’t specifically remember that. But, I won’t deny it.” Right? “I wouldn’t say that he… I won’t say that he didn’t, call for execution of staffers, because that’s the sort of thing he did. Right? That’s the sort of thing he said.” This is insane, right? I mean, step back for a second. We’re talking about the President of the United States talking about how members of his staff should be executed, for leaking information that he didn’t want leaked, which was not national security information or anything. It’s just something that he thinks is embarrassing to him. Absolutely unprecedented and insane.

And we shouldn’t, you know, a lot of things that Trump is saying now, we shouldn’t just sort of, sort of walk past it and say, as Bill Barr said, “Oh, well, people are taking him too literally.” Well, I’m sorry, but that’s like the only way I know how to take people, right? I mean, I can’t, you know, when you say, “I want to execute that person,” and you’re the President of the United States, I have to take you literally when you stand in front of a rally in Las Vegas and talk about, you know, boats and electrocution and sharks. I have to take you literally. I don’t how to take it otherwise. And I, this is a person who was elected president of the United States and who has a chance of being elected again. That should cause all of us to just to step back and think for a minute. This is not normal, and this is not acceptable or safe for the country.

Trump attacked Robinson and The Washington Post on Truth Social in the wake of his op-ed, referring to them as “fools and stupid people.”

Watch the video above via MSNBC.