On Wednesday night, Donald Trump began his prime-time White House address by attacking his predecessor, Joe Biden. “Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess — and I’m fixing it,” he said.
Throughout the 18-minute speech, the president boasted about the state of the U.S. economy, despite the fact that Americans have soured on Trump over the issue. He defended his handling of inflation and his unpopular tariff policy.
On Thursday’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough reacted to Trump’s address and called out the president for his “crazy obsession” with Biden, who he said “lives rent-free in his head.”
Scarborough added that this isn’t a new phenomenon. He referenced a March report from The New York Times that found that during the president’s first 50 days in office, Trump said “Biden” an average of 6.32 times per day.
“And here we are,” Scarborough said. “This is over 300 days into Donald Trump’s second administration, and it is a constant obsession.”
The MS NOW host slammed the president for attacking Biden while spreading lies about the economy under his administration. During his speech, Trump told the American people that “inflation has stopped, wages are up, prices are down.”
“You don’t need, like, PolitiFact to fact-check most of this stuff,” Scarborough said, noting that while inflation indeed went down when Trump initially took office, it has since shot back up.
The latest data shows that prices have increased 2.7% year over year, above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. “Inflation’s not down,” Scarborough said. “He can say inflation’s down, [but] inflation’s exactly where it was when he took office.”
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, then shared some advice for the president on how to talk about the economy. “If you don’t want to lie, you can say, ‘We’ve stabilized inflation, and now it’s going to get even better. … And this next year, we’re going to do more than just stabilize it for you; we’re going to bring it down.”
Scarborough said he would be interested to see how the American people reacted to Trump’s speech and his claims about the economy.
“I don’t know how that’s going to square with how people actually feel about the economy,” he said, “but ‘strange days,’ as John Lennon would say, ‘most peculiar, darling.’”
You can watch Scarborough’s full commentary in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.