MSNBC's Joe Scarborough noticed a telling remark in Donald Trump's surprise news conference Monday that the host said indicated softening support for two of the president-elect's nominees.
The president-elect spoke to reporters at his at Mar-a-Lago club, and he indicated that he would call for primary challenges to Republican senators who voted against his nominees for "stupid reasons," but would possibly hold his fire on "reasonable" GOP senators who rejected his choices because they "really disagree with something."
"Boy, yesterday we were talking about the back-and-forth, a lot of the Republican senators saying, 'Hey, you know what? The pressure campaign, not really going to work, in fact, it may be backfiring,'" Scarborough said. "The press conference, very interesting. He said, 'If they're unreasonable and personal, I could see them being primaried. If they're reasonable, and they don't like their views or something like that, I could see that.'"
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Republican senators already successfully blocked Matt Gaetz as attorney general, and the "Morning Joe" host can see that dynamic playing out for two of Trump's most controversial choices – defense nominee Pete Hegseth and intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard – in the coming days.
"We first of all remember Gaetz going down, people around Trump saying, 'Wow, we traded up with Pam Bondi — we got a better deal out of it," Scarborough said. "Just the facts that Hegseth, there's still the feeling he is not going to make it through. We have news today suggesting even [Monday], he's showing horrific judgment on the Hill with a person that's taking him around on the Hill."
Hegseth was escorted to his meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill by a security guard who left the military after a 2019 training session where witnesses said he brutally beat a civilian role player.
"Also Tulsi Gabbert – again, the word just is that she just did terribly last week, not up to it," Scarborough said. "Not even up to doing the interviews in a way that gave confidence to Republican senators who wanted to support her. So there are at least two picks right there that I have a feeling, if they go by the wayside, he's not going to be too upset."
"He does want [Robert F. Kennedy] Jr. from all we hear, but these two," Scarborough added, "I'm not so sure that wasn't just a tip to the Senate going, 'If you have good reasons to not take those two, we understand.'"
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