Morning Joe delivers brutal message to 'stupid liar' Ken Paxton

"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough opened Thursday morning's show by unleashing an epic rant on everyone he thinks is "stupid," but his biggest insults were for Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), President Donald Trump and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

After a rant about the Yankees game on Wednesday night, Scarborough addressed recent reporting from MS NOW's Carol Leonnig and others that Schmitt was warned that the text messages hadn't been vetted or confirmed.

"And going back to what Donald Trump was saying, I love this whole 'oh, it wasn't, you know — we haven't communicated it well,'" he said about the GOP's excuses around election failures when chatting with co-host Mika Brzezinski.

"You know, they lie when telling the truth would be better. They can lie about January 6. They can lie about a rigged election. They can lie about everything else. It ends up that what they found, Mika, is that they can't lie about grocery bills. They can't lie about gas bills. They can't lie about diesel bills. They can't lie about the cost of living. They can't lie about how much somebody has to pay for rent. They can't lie about how things are more expensive today than they were when Joe Biden left office. They just can't lie about it," said Scarborough.

"So, they [get] caught — they found themselves in this position where suddenly they can't lie even about whether somebody goes to an Atlanta Hawks game. And boy, what about that? That guy was warned. He was warned not to use the text that just made him look like a jackass in front of the world!" Scarborough exclaimed about Schmitt, who was caught lying about former special counsel Jack Smith being at an Atlanta Hawks game when he was at an Iowa Hawkeyes game.

"He used it anyway because they don't think facts matter, but facts matter when people get their receipts from the grocery bills, and it's costing them so much more today than it did even when Joe Biden left office," said Scarborough.

When it comes to the report that Ken Paxton was caught on tape bashing Trump, Brzezinski read pieces of the report noting that Republican numbers have dropped across the board after the Dallas mid-term convention.

"Yeah, because you're a liar!" exclaimed Scarborough. "You're a stupid liar. But you can go ahead and do that. Nobody believes you, just like they don't believe what the DHS says — when the DHS lies about shooting people. But that's just what you do. So good luck with that. Let's see how it works in November."

He went on to mock Trump for lying about his television ratings. Veteran reporter Katie Kay said Trump doesn't appear to understand the difference between the number of impressions of a video and the "ratings" for television.

The leak from Paxton prompted The Bulwark's Sam Stein to explain that Trump trash-talking the Texas candidate in his own state at the convention likely wasn't helpful in increasing his numbers. Now that Trump is headed to Texas, Stein said that it's fairly likely that Trump will go there "and call Ken Paxton ugly."

Stein said that it might be enough to "save" Paxton, but that it's coming at the expense of a high number of Republicans, and Paxton ended up costing the GOP hundreds of millions of dollars, whether he wins or not.

Jonathan Lemire said that he reported for The Atlantic about the deep-red states where Trump will be campaigning. They were once safe Republican seats, but what a difference the GOP has made in squandering away any progress in 2024.

They continued with more mockery for Schmitt from Scarborough as the lawmaker continues "living in ignorance" and "[spreading] the lies around" and even "after he was caught lying he still shamelessly continues to spread the lie."

'"You're right. It's a perfect snapshot. Incompetence, dishonesty, and then being completely unapologetic," said Willie Geist.