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Luigi Mangione MSNBC Morning Joe 12-11-24 “Lived experience” is a favorite phrase in the liberal lexicon.

As a certified member of the liberal media, Joe Scarborough has surely heard “lived experience” countless times from his woke cohort.

So why would Scarborough profess ignorance of it?

The question arises because professing ignorance was precisely what Scarborough did on today’s Morning Joe. The show aired a clip of Luigi Mangione, the accused killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, as he was being led away by authorities in Pennsylvania.

Mangione yelled at reporters:

“It’s completely out of touch, and an insult to the intelligence of the American people, and its lived experience!”

To which Scarborough responded:

“What does that mean? Lived experience. What’s that?”

Ever since Donald Trump’s resounding victory on November 5th, Scarborough has been conducting a campaign of distancing himself from his hyper-liberal anti-Trump persona. (MSNBC has touted how Kamala Harris has employed her “lived experience” as a prosecutor on the world stage.)

The morning backtracking began on the very day after the election, when, as we noted at the time, rather than reacting with gnashing of teeth and renting of garments like others in the “MSM,” Scarborough spoke in measured tones and acknowledged the scope of Trump’s win.

Then, just days later, Joe and Mika famously visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago. They hotly deny having kissed the ring, and say they were just doing what any journalist would do, given the opportunity. 

But while Mika said that she and Joe would continue to “speak truth to power”—another favorite lib phrase—she also conceded that “hyperbole and personal attacks will not work. My hair on fire doesn’t work.” This from a co-host of the show that’s made its stock in trade accusing Trump of being a Hitler knock-off and an “existential threat to American democracy”–yet another liberal catchphrase!

Seen in this light, Scarborough’s feigning not to know “lived experience” can be seen as one more step in the show’s long march in shedding its woke hysteria.

But why? Why not continue to condemn Trump as a “fascist” at every turn, and smear his supporters as “freaks” who are “crazy as a sh–house rat?”

The likely answer: Scarborough has read the ratings. Like the rest of the MSNBC line-up, since the election, Morning Joe has suffered a precipitous plunge in the show’s audience. Couple that with the news that MSNBC’s owner, Comcast, is planning to spin off the network, and Scarborough seems to understand that continuing on the path of Trump-hatred-all-the-time is the road to oblivion.

Seen in that light, Scarborough’s pretending not to comprehend “lived experience” can be understood.

That said, Morning Joe must walk a fine line. On the one hand, to survive, it must forsake it’s all-out-assault on Trump and his supporters, and its embrace of liberal lingo. On the other hand, it doesn’t dare go so far as to alienate its viewer base, which remains overwhelmingly liberal.

So Morning Joe must continue to throw some regular bits of red meat to its audience. Thus, for example, Scarborough today went on a rant against Pete Hegseth, calling him “woefully ill-equipped to be Secretary of Defense,” knocking the nominee on everything from his experience to his personal character, to his views on women in combat.

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
12/11/24
6:02 am ET

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The man accused of killing UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson, fighting extradition to New York. That decision was made during the hearing he is facing charges for forgery and carrying a gun without a license.

Mangione was arrested in the Commonwealth on Monday, ending a five-day manhunt. A judge denied bail for the 26-year-old suspect, who is now expected to remain in custody at a state prison in Huntington. 

Before his hearing yesterday, the suspect shouted this to reporters.

LUIGI MANGIONE: It’s completely out of touch, and an insult to the intelligence of the American people, and its lived experience!

MIKA: The Manhattan district attorney’s office says it will now seek —

JOE SCARBOROUGH: What does that mean? Lived experience. What’s that?

. . . . 

SCARBOROUGH: The person we’re looking at right now is woefully ill-equipped to be Secretary of Defense. Does not have any managerial experience that would allow him to run the largest, the most complex, the most important, critically important, bureaucracy in the United States of America, or the world.

As the Middle East dissolves and melts down, as a war in eastern Europe threatens to move towards a nuclear confrontation or a World War. That’s where we start. And then you start stacking up one allegation after another, whether the allegation is about financial mismanagement. Whether the allegation is about a chronic abuse of women. That allegation, of course, underlined in a letter his own mother wrote to him. Whether you’re talking about taking successful VA organizations and running them into the ground. 

Whether you’re talking about claim, after claim, after claim of the sort of inappropriate behavior that Joni Ernst claims to be a champion of, in stopping in the United States military. And speaking of Joni Ernst, and Tammy Duckworth, and so many other women, Willie, that have made heroic contributions to the United States of America through armed combat. He still sounds like a hard no on women in combat. This is not the 1950s. 

And again, take all of that, and put it to the side. The fact that any senator could stand up and confidently say, yes, oh yes, Pete Hegseth is exactly the sort of person that should run the DoD. That says so much about the complete lack of, of, just responsibility that these senators that are saying this publicly, are taking in their extraordinarily important job.