‘Morning Joe’: Talking to Trump at Parties, ‘the Charm Comes on’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT: 
SCARBOROUGH: “We had Willie early the campaign when Hillary Clinton was pressed “Why did you go to his wedding? “She was like “He’s a fun guy.” That’s the thing. We’ve known him for 10 years on and off and everybody, whether it’s Hillary Clinton or you or us or anybody in New York, one on one he’s a charming guy.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Life of the party.”
SCARBOROUGH: “It’s very interesting, when he’s in front of a microphone he’ll say “I’m great, I’m great.” But when he’s in front of you at a party “Willie, you book, the greatest book ever written.” And his first book was the greatest. But it’s one of the things where people say well, how could that guy get one on one with Republicans and pull them over because when he’s off camera he’s the opposite in many ways as when he’s on camera, the charm comes on.”
GEIST: “He is charming. I just wonder if charm is enough to twin over as you call him the old bulls who have come out publicly and said he’s a disgrace and this guy can’t be the standard bearer for our party. Do they get in line with him because they think he would be a good president, do they get in line because there’s no alternative. There was some feeling that now that John Kasich was in there maybe the old Washington group would get behind Kasich and support his run. Any evidence of that?”
HALPERIN: "Some of them are. And I continue to believe he’s an undervalued stock here. He’s the fourth most likely next president of the United States, John Kasich."
SCARBOROUGH: "You’re talking about Kasich?
HALPERIN: "But the second most likely —"
SCARBOROUGH: "You said he was scattered. That looked like a scattered speech. It looked like you were being polite —
BRZEZINSKI: "About Trump or Kasich?"
SCARBOROUGH: "John Kasich. He got a great reception in Pennsylvania. A very crowded town hall but he didn’t seize the moment. Now go back to trump, he’s the first or second most likely president of the United States and if you’re a Republican, even if you oppose him on some level, you have to acknowledge he’s most likely to be your nominee. We can imagine what he’s saying in these calls and it’s intoxicating. It’s the first real conversation these people have ever had with Donald Trump, most likely their nominee.”
JANSING: “And you go back to your home state of Florida, Joe, anti-trump forces spent five, six times what he spent there.”
SCARBOROUGH: “Oh, my god.”
JANSING: “And look what it got them. There’s a reality check for a lot of Republicans.”
SCARBOROUGH: “And if you’re Rick Scott, and this is what other people are going to start looking at, they don’t like him in Washington, D.C., they loved Marco in Washington, D.C. But you go to a state like Florida, the guy is winning by 20 points and Florida politicians see he wins everything county except one, he wins 66 out of 67 counties in Florida then they’re going wait, that may not be a risky bet after all, do I want Mitch McConnell campaigning with me in Barto, Florida, or Donald Trump? That’s easy. And I think we’ll start to see, Mika, a remarkable amount of rationalization. I talked with Alex burns of the “New York Times” yesterday, he’ll be coming on later today, I think we’ll see a tremendous amount of rationalizing over the next two to three weeks because right now everybody will start getting in line. Because trump has no infrastructure. There’s nobody around him and so that presents opportunity for a Washington consulting class that’s never been shut out like this before.”
BRZEZINSKI: “ It’s very complicated conversation. Even to hear several of you say he is charming. You just isolate that and you could literally launch an avalanche of criticism from people in the media, from women’s groups, from Muslim organizations because he has said some horrible things and it’s not just —“
SCARBOROUGH: “But notice, Mika, when we said charming off camera, charming away from the microphone.”
BRZEZINSKI: “It’s still a complicated conversation.”
SCARBOROUGH: “That’s one of the great ironies.”
BRZEZINSKI: “That’s not true. I think some of the things have been said in front of the microphone.”
SCARBOROUGH: “ Mika, that’s what I’m saying. Give the man a microphone and camera and there’s nothing charming about him.”
BRZEZINSKI: “Okay.”
SCARBOROUGH: “ Have him go to events around New York like we’ve all gone to and suddenly it’s like Hillary Clinton said, he’s charming, he’s nice, he’s likable. And Hillary said in our interview she doesn’t recognize the Donald Trump that’s running for president right now.”
BRZEZINSKI: “It’s very complicated. It should be interesting. But I think the falling in line will be fascinating, too, because those private conversations, then these Republicans are going to have to explain publicly and I think this is going to be very challenging for them.”
SCARBOROUGH: “I think it will be hard.”