'What a joke!' Joe Scarborough rails against Trump GOP’s 'conscious desire to imitate' autocratic leader

MSNBC's Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski spoke with Financial Times National US Editor Edward Luce Sunday morning about Donald Trump and the Republican Party's commitment to "worship" and model the leadership of autocrat and Hungary Prime Minster Viktor Orbán.

"This is a guy — Donald Trump — who has promised to terminate the Constitution," Scarborough emphasized. "He said he was going to ban TV networks that he didn't like. He said he was going to execute generals that were insufficiently loyal to him for quote, 'treason', which by the way sounds like the French resolution with a guillotine. They accused everyone of treason and cut their heads off. And then, he talked about a couple weeks ago, how he could kill his political opponents with Seal Team 6, and be immune from all things. Talks about Viktor Orbán — you understand that a lot of people, maybe on wall street understand what that means — Viktor Orbán has shut down the free press. Viktor Orbán has crushed all political parts. Viktor Orbán is an autocrat who hates western democracy and freedom. and free markets, the way that Wall Street claims to like free markets. You can't make a deal with the devil. You lose every time."

Luce replied, "People around Orban, including the local gas man in his village, the guy who does gas connections, have grown rich beyond their wildest fantasies —the billionaires. Those who are in with him get rewarded, and that is how strong men operate. They don't operate according to free market capitalist rules."

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Scarborough continued, "And then on the other side of that, people that owned media empires — people that control newspapers, and control TV stations, that were opposed to him — they got charged with crimes, that literally, the value of the company went to zero, and Orbán said I'll buy it from you, you can leave the country, or go to jail. So yeah, the local gas man got rich. People running the free press got thrown in jail. Politicians get run out of country. This is what America faces under a second Donald Trump administration who brags that Orbán is a strong man that he loves, that he is going to be like."

Luce said, "CPAC [Conservative Political Action Conference], I mean the conservative movement openly adulate Orbán as the model for Trump. This isn't just paying a compliment to an ideological fellow traveler across The Atlantic. It's a much, much more conscious desire to imitate Orban. Orban is what Trump wants to be, punishing business critics, rewarding business friends, a crony system, a patronage based system, in which if you are a friend of Trump, it could become a monopolist. And so I think business leaders — I don't think that [Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase], Jamie Dimon, is a Trumpian. He is actually a registered Democrat, I believe. But I think his ultimate loyalty is to JP Morgan's bottom line. And he knows that if JP Morgan gets out of line under a second Trump administration, which will be far more serious than the first one, then it will get punished. Trump will have no compunction about using the paths of the presidency to award and punish with favors and fines."

Scarborough concluded, "You know, it's amazing, Mika, that the party that I was in, always has talked about personal freedom, personal liberties, talked about small government, take as much money power and authority out of Washington as possible. Get it into local governments. Get it into classrooms. Get it into local police districts. Here you have a Republican party — CPAC — what a joke! Let's not even get started with CPAC. And the Heritage Foundation, what a joke. The RNC [Republican National Committee]. These institutions that used to praise personal liberty, personal freedoms, small government, are all now — as Ed said — they have readjusted, and now they are in support of autocracy. They are in support of a strong man leader. They are in support, the same people who will b**ch and moan about how, 'Oh, the western cannon, and western values are being destroyed, western civilization is at risk!' Those people, now worship — as does Donald Trump — leader of a failed country, who has said that he hates western democracy. says western democracy is dead. He says, 'I'm an illiberal Democrat.' And that's where they've gone.'"

Brzezinski added, "Yeah, and if you get what you want, you're not gonna like it."

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'What a joke!' Joe Scarborough slams GOP over 'conscious desire to imitate' autocracyyoutu.be