Scarborough Gets Defensive Again over Trump: We’re Just Reporting the Facts

SCARBOROUGH: “You — it — the game is over. They shoot out, and it’s momentum, as Nicole said, it’s lightning in a bottle and they can’t be stopped. That’s why I’ve been deeply skeptical post-South Carolina, that anybody was going to stop Donald Trump. Chris Cillizza, so, how do you balance — and I’m just — I throw this open to the table. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there that are angry say, ‘Oh, you’re giving Trump all of this legitimacy!’ No, we’re just reporting on the realities. And we found —“
CILLIZZA: “Well, it just a facts.”
SCARBOROUGH: “— that when we report on the realities and the facts, it pisses a lot of folks off.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Because the facts were —“
SCARBOROUGH: “Because they don’t like the facts and they say that we’re the ones that have diagnosed it properly for the past nine months, that somehow we must like the — what we diagnosed.”
BRZEZINSKI: “We must be very powerful.”
SCARBOROUGH: “But — we must be, I know. But, how do you balance getting the facts out to the people, which is, basically, this guy knows what he’s doing. He knows how to win Republican primaries.”
BRZEZINSKI: “They don’t like it.”
SCARBOROUGH: “With, again, all the offensive things that we’ve been talking about now for the past week. It is — and we’re going to be doing it, I suspect, into the fall.”
CILLIZZA: “Well, one of the things that is hard, and I’m sure you wrong on this, because I do, people say to me, all the time, why don’t you guys fact check Donald Trump and tell people that he’s not telling the truth about things. And I said, ‘We — do you ever read anything we write or watching?’ (Laughter) I mean, this idea, people can hold this remarkable idea, which is, the media is less powerful than it’s ever been before, but also, super powerful and able to convince people who hate the media of things. The idea that — and I love ‘The Washington Post’ fact checker — Glenn Kessler and Michelle Lee, they do a great job. But the idea that Donald Trump supporters are going to go and be like, ‘Oh, well, they got three Pinocchios for that statement. (Laughter) I guess I’m not going to be for him.’ I mean, you ought to be from a different planet.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Yeah.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Yeah, Yeah.”
CILLIZZA: “And that’s what’s hard. We are doing — people say, ‘Do your job!’ We are doing our job. [crosstalk] But we don’t reach every single person. And the very fact that we say, sometimes, that on the facts, there weren’t hundreds of or thousands of Muslims celebrating September 11th in New Jersey, means for something — well, that’s just the media, what a surprise. I mean, you saw Sarah Palin yesterday, the media is siding — taking the thugs’ side.” [crosstalk]