Tuesday’s episode of Morning Joe did its finest to rain on yesterday’s parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA Military.
First up was MSNBC commentator Anand Giridharadas—a person who seemingly has on his thoughts a sure concern affecting some males.
Of all of the adjectives he might need chosen, Giridharadas known as the parade “flaccid.” This from the guy who has chosen as his signature look [see screencap] a rigidly erect hairdo.
This man advised Trump’s inspiration for the parade was from communist China and North Korea. Reality verify: False. He is lengthy cited Bastille Day in democratic France.
Then there was Washington Publish columnist Eugene Robinson. He started by diminishing the dimensions of Trump’s 2024 victory, noting it was just one.5%. Robinson ignored the truth that Trump was the primary Republican in 20 years to win the favored vote, and that he swept all seven swing states.
Robinson stated that the margin of Trump’s win did not represent an “overwhelming mandate for proto-fascism,” which he apparently thought the parade represented. To which tens of hundreds of thousands of Individuals would possible reply, “You are proper. We did not vote for proto-fascism. We voted for capitalism and border management.”
However you do have to present Robinson full marks for syntax: not simply fascism, however “proto-fascism.” Dials the fright issue to 11.
And eventually, there was Joe Scarborough, who but once more labored in the truth that he had been a member of Congress.
Noting that his former district is dwelling to extra navy retirees than another in America, Scarborough was “fairly certain” that if he nonetheless represented them, they’d say that, fairly than spending cash on the parade, the funds ought to have been directed to numerous applications designed to help veterans. That sounds borrowed from Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin from his present yesterday.
I am “fairly certain” these veterans would fairly have the cash spent on a navy parade than on, say, a “transgender opera in Colombia” funded by USAID. Do not keep in mind Scarborough kvetching about that in Biden’s tenure.
Whereas Morning Joe tried to pan the parade, different liberal voices weren’t almost so destructive, amongst them Scarborough’s MSNBC liberal colleagues Chris Hayes and Ali Velshi.
Fox Information reported this alternate between the 2:
Hayes stated that whereas Trump rallies can have “type of a darkish, malevolent vitality, typically in them, not all the time, however it doesn’t appear to be that’s the vitality on the Mall at this time.”
Velshi agreed: “Appropriate. You’re actually right about that, Chris, and it’s one thing we have been looking ahead to. I’m simply kind of shocked by the quantity of people that have been on the entrance of the parade watching, cheering, after which would come and ask to take a selfie. It is a very completely different, this can be a very completely different temper right here.”
And ardent anti-Trumper Max Boot has written [emphasis added]:
“My fear was that Trump would flip the Military parade into simply one other political pageant. These issues solely grew after I noticed how most of the spectators have been sporting MAGA hats or shirts. However my apprehension started to soften away as quickly because the music began to play and the troopers started to march. Pricey reader, I hope you don’t suppose I’m going mushy on Trump if I let you know that I completely loved the whole parade.“
Here is the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
6/17/25
6:46 am EDTJONATHAN LEMIRE: And I do know you have been centered on what occurred in Washington with the navy parade. Lots of, there have been a number of concern concerning the pictures that President Trump was attempting to create there, along with, past the maybe taxpayer expenditures. However you discovered comforting the gang simply did not present up.
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: They did not. It was a flaccid and unhappy parade. And after, , folks have seen now the photographs of the type of half-empty bleachers, of the officers type of yawning and never notably enthusiastic about their very own parade that they’d ordered up.
Look, Donald Trump tried to make use of the USA Armed Forces as a birthday celebration rental firm, proper? He tried to throw himself a birthday utilizing the USA Armed Forces. And what’s so fascinating, there have been these memes that began doing the rounds of those footage from the parade, footage like what you are seeing, but additionally the precise marching, juxtaposed with footage of navy parades of the type we all know Trump likes. The type of North Korean, Chinese language marching in lockstep, hundreds of individuals in these like sq. formations, the kicking going up and down, the arms going up and down.
We all know that is what he wished. And in the USA of America, he was not in a position to get it regardless of his energy and being the Commander-in-Chief.
. . .
EUGENE ROBINSON: The cut up display is what I assumed was so fascinating, since you had on the one hand, the navy parade that wasn’t, there was no goose stepping, none of that. And then you definitely had 5 million folks in demonstrations across the nation towards what President Trump is doing.
What it delivered to thoughts to me was a quantity that, that Joe Scarborough talked about earlier, 1.5%. That was the margin between the 77 million votes that Donald Trump acquired and the 75 million that Kamala Harris acquired.
And it isn’t this overwhelming mandate for proto-fascism.
. . .
JOE SCARBOROUGH: My feeling is, in fact, we wish to all the time salute our women and men in uniform. My guess is, serving in a district that had extra navy retirees than another district in America, my guess is they’d say, what, use that cash to assist with VA advantages. Use that cash to strengthen the VA as a substitute of gutting the VA . . . That is simply usually my thought.
Once more, serving in a district that had six, seven navy bases and extra navy retirees than any district in America. I feel most of these folks, who clearly love the navy, would take a look at that navy parade and are available to me if I have been nonetheless representing them and saying, why do now we have cuts on the VA? Why is Congress and the White Home not protecting their promise on veterans well being care, on navy retirees well being care? However they’re working parades that price tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}. I am fairly certain that is what I’d hear from my constituents.
