Morning Joe Whines About Being “Low On Totem Pole” Because Hillary Clinton Won’t Come On

During Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-hosts Mike Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough openly complained about their inability to book likely 2016 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to appear on the show. In a segment discussing early primary states and polls, both Scarborough and Mika took shots at the former Secretary of State, claiming she is scared to appear on a “freeform” show like Morning Joe because the show doesn’t have “dimwits” reading pre-arranged questions from a teleprompter. All in all, the bitterness and resentment over their show’s apparent lack of importance showed through rather clearly.

Brzezinski began the whinefest by claiming she has reached out numerous times to Clinton’s staff to get clarity on some of her positions or to possibly have the ex-First Lady on the show. Later, she contrasted Mrs. Clinton’s lack of communication with Morning Joe with that of some potential GOP candidates like Scott Walker and Rand Paul, stating they’d “reached out” to the show to either appear or provide comments. The co-host said at that point that the show was obviously “low on the totem pole,” perhaps acknowledging the sinking ratings and lagging popularity of the program.

Scarborough took over at this point and provided his typical smug take on the real reasons why Clinton hasn’t appeared on the show. In his opinion, the former Democratic Senator is frightened to come on a show with a tough panel who won’t ask her pre-screened questions. He feels that Clinton sees her approval rating among Democrats and doesn’t want to risk it by getting challenged by the mighty Joe Scarborough.

To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.

“If I’ve got an 89% approval rating among the Democrats, why do I want to talk to anybody? Why do I want to go on a show like this one where you have to actually talk about the issues, where they’re not dimwits that read a teleprompter and ask you three questions they were told to ask last night. This is freeform.

There are candidates intelligent enough to handle that and not say stupid things. But there are a lot of candidates, on the Republican side as well, that are just scared to be in this sort of setting. So why would she come?”

While Mika at least somewhat recognized the fact that Clinton may not be appearing on Morning Joe due to its decreasing reputation and plummeting ratings, in Joe’s mind, it is all because she is shaking in her boots at the prospect of dealing with him and his tenacious questions. If you ever wanted to see Scarborough’s arrogance in full effect, this segment is a prime example.

Below is video of the segment, courtesy of MSNBC:

Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).