‘Morning Joe’ Rejects Kavanaugh’s Defense Because He ‘Cried Like a Baby’ and ‘Raged’

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts, Joe Scarborough (pictured above right) and Mika Brzezinski (above left), ripped Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Friday for crying “like a baby” when he “raged” during his “extraordinarily emotional” testimony last week.

Their criticism was prompted by Kavanaugh’s defense of his testimony in an op-ed late Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.

“You know, there is a moment where you can really show what you’re made of. Brett Kavanaugh had two opportunities. One in that hearing where he raged, defended himself, cried like a baby, and basically … said it was everyone else’s fault but his own, what was going on,” Brzezinski began.

“And secondly in this op-ed, where he could have called out the president, he could have called out people that were mocking [accuser] Christine Blasey Ford and said, ‘Don’t mock her. Don’t mock her. Leave her alone,'” she added.

Scarborough chimed in, saying, “I think many of us would be extraordinarily emotional if we were wrongly accused of those claims. But you have a decision to make. You can go out and rail against partisans, you can rail against the Democratic senators and they certainly had a lot to be attacked for. You can rail against the partisanship, all the ads that run against you.

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“But if you’re going to do that, you know what? Be a politician, run for office. If you want to be a federal judge, you don’t do that,” Scarborough added. “You just don’t. You know what? Save it. Save it for politicians. I get it, it’s a blood sport, but if you want to be a federal judge, if you want to be one of nine people shaping the laws of this country and interpreting the Constitution, you have to rise above that.”

Ford came forward publicly on September 16 and accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her some 36 years ago, during a high school party in suburban Maryland. Two other women, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, also came forward, alleging sexual assault.

All of the witnesses the women said would corroborate their claims either did not do so, contradicted them, or were unavailable. Kavanaugh has vehemently and passionately denied all of the accusations against him. Both Kavanaugh and Ford testified last week before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

Kavanaugh also directed his anger toward the Democratic senators for their treatment of him and the allegations, and at those who had already made up their minds to vote against him shortly after he was nominated, and even before the allegations came out.

In his op-ed — “I Am an Independent, Impartial Judge” — Kavanaugh said he “was very emotional last Thursday, more so than I have ever been. I might have been too emotional at times. I know that my tone was sharp, and I said a few things I should not have said.”

“Going forward, you can count on me to be the same kind of judge and person I have been for my entire 28-year legal career: hardworking, even-keeled, open-minded, independent and dedicated to the Constitution and the public good.”

“I hope everyone can understand that I was there as a son, husband and dad,” he added. “I testified with five people foremost in my mind: my mom, my dad, my wife, and most of all my daughters.

“Going forward, you can count on me to be the same kind of judge and person I have been for my entire 28-year legal career: hardworking, even-keeled, open-minded, independent and dedicated to the Constitution and the public good.”

But Brzezinski, Scarborough, and other “Morning Joe” panelists were not convinced by Kavanaugh’s defense.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson criticized Kavanaugh for not also defending Ford in his op-ed.

“That would have shown a certain generosity and grandness of spirit that we saw none of from Judge Kavanaugh. That op-ed is all me, me, me, and they made me do it, the dastardly liberals turned me into that creature that you saw yelling and frothing at that hearing,” Robinson said.

GOP strategist Susan Del Percio said on “Morning Joe” that Kavanaugh was “flippant and really disrespectful” during his testimony and while answering questions from the senators.

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“He should be better than that,” Del Percio said. “Just using Kavanaugh’s words, and looking at [President Donald Trump], I don’t think [Sens.] Susan Collins [R-Maine], or Lisa Murkowski [R-Alaska] or Jeff Flake [R-Ariz.] should reward this president with this nomination … President Trump seeks to always divide us. This nomination will further divide us.”

In fact, MSNBC contributor and Commentary magazine associate editor Noah Rothman seemed to be the only person on “Morning Joe” who remotely defended Kavanaugh’s emotion, although he also criticized the testimony.

“There’s a lot of cost benefits there. The costs are that we have this new avenue of inquiry which says the judge has behaved in a matter that was very partisan, rancorous, and unbecoming of a Supreme Court justice. And there’s a lot to that,” Rothman said.

“However, if you were to approach that moment after the wrenching, affecting testimony that we heard from Dr. Ford, which frankly was very convincing, and he approached that in a dispassionate manner and said, ‘I really welcome an inquiry into my own guilt in what is essentially a sex crime,’ I think he would have been accused of being a sociopath, unmoved by the emotion of that moment,” he insisted.

“Republicans would not have rallied to him. Democrats would have found his lack of emotion unconvincing and his nomination, I think, would not have survived the day,” Rothman added. “So we now have a different situation, probably one that’s frankly better for Kavanaugh, but if he were to approach it as his critics say he should have, I don’t think his nomination would have survived.”