‘Morning Joe’: Obama’s ‘Weakness’ Making Trump ‘Stronger’

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT]

GEIST: "There the New Hampshire poll. Let's go back to it. Donald trump up 29 points. Excuse me, 19 points. Rubio up 6 there, Cruz 5 points. Again, so now we work our way through the primary season and you got Trump up in Iowa now and up in New Hampshire.

SCARBOROUGH: "Look at this. Thirty-two percent Jeb Bush down at 6 percent. Rubio at 13, Carson 10 Cruz 10. I mean, you have a candidate who is completely dominant in Iowa and New Hampshire."

BRZEZINSKI: "Do you think he needs to be careful making 9/11 comments?"

GEIST: "Just for fun they threw Mitt Romney in the mix. He wins 31 percent of the vote. Donald Trump at 15 percent. And if you keep going down, double digits go down to Florida."

SCARBOROUGH: "I mean, you look at these polls, looks like big news, two big headlines. Well actually probably three. One: Trump in a stronger position today than he's ever been as far as the polls go. Two: Ben Carson dropping. And three: Ted Cruz seems to be making his way in Iowa and also in some national polls."

BRZEZINSKI: "We have two candidates use 9/11 inappropriately. I think Trump is one of them and I think that is an area he needs to be really careful. He's obviously completely strong in the polls, but I do think when you start pushing it on those issues you better be careful not to insult the people here."

SCARBOROUGH: "Our two blocks are connected. Barack Obama's weak leadership and Donald Trump's rise. Where there is a vacuum, where there is a void, where Barack Obama's and others on the side saying just the opposite. It's feeding in the fear of Americans and making candidates like Donald Trump even stronger."

BARNICLE: "It's the history of civilization and political campaigns will prove that a strong voice in in an environment, people are going to hear the stronger voice. No matter what you think of where Donald Trump is coming from or what he's saying or how he's saying it, he basically has planted a flag, a rhetorical flag and saying follow me and people are hearing that voice."

SCARBOROUGH: "Willie, the main stream media needs to look at the poll numbers from the Washington Post. Barack Obama can play his little games and do his moral lectures all he wants, we all agree on that. When you have 47 Democrats voting to keep Syrian refugees out and have Democrats equally concerned about a lot of things, the media seen, I just seen one story after the other."

GEIST: "They're taking what you've seen in these polls from the American people."