In a new episode of “Morning Joe” on Monday, host Joe Scarborough shared his thoughts on Joe Biden officially dropping out of the presidential race, saying that he thinks Donald Trump and Republicans are now “freaking out.”
“I’ve heard from inside the Trump campaign for some time right now that the one thing Donald Trump feared was not having Joe Biden to run against,” Scarborough said. “If you talk about boxing, he was used to going against Biden, right? So, what have they done? They’ve switched it up — it’s going to be a southpaw now.”
Biden announced his decision on Sunday night, writing: “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.” He then endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Top democrats had been calling for 81-year-old Biden to drop out since he fumbled a CNN debate against Republican candidate Donald Trump last month, raising questions about his fitness to run due to his age. With 59-year-old Harris now the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, Scarborough said of Trump: “Suddenly, he’s the oldest guy in the race by a long shot.”
“The one thing that got to [Trump] was the idea that he might not be running against Biden because that’s all he’s been focused on since 2020,” Scarborough said. “But now you’re hearing [Speaker of the House] Mike Johnson, you’re hearing all these people just freak out: ‘This is illegal, you can’t do this. You can’t decide at a convention who your nominee is going to be. You can’t let the delegates decide.’ Well yeah, you can. It’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard in my life. But again, the fact they’re freaking out so much has to excite a Democratic party that was really at its lowest of any party that I’ve seen since Watergate.”
Scarborough had previously openly questioned if Biden was capable of running a reelection campaign and expressed his relief in a MSNBC op-ed on Sunday night that Biden had given his full support to Harris.
“I think a lot of Democrats that were going back and forth this weekend on this issue felt an awful lot of relief, because Democrats obviously believe Biden did a great job — he has a great record, along with Kamala Harris,” Scarborough wrote. “And as he said, it’s absolutely necessary for the Democratic Party, if they want to defeat Donald Trump, to unite as one.”
“Morning Joe” also made headlines last week when, after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump over the weekend, the show was taken off the schedule for Monday. Scarborough spoke out against this when the show resumed on Tuesday, saying that he was “very surprised” and “very disappointed” by the decision.
“Next time we’re told there’s going to be a news feed replacing us, we will be in our chairs,” Scarborough said. “And the news feed will be us or they can get somebody else to host this show.”