‘Morning Joe’ Claims Media Not ‘Allowed to Speak About’ Trump’s Mental Fitness

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host, Joe Scarborough, said Monday that members of the media “were not allowed to speak about” President Donald Trump’s mental fitness for office until Michael Wolff’s new book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” came to public notice.

In fact, contrary to his claim the media weren’t “allowed” to broach the topic, Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski have questioned Trump’s mental stability multiple times throughout 2017. Neither Scarborough nor Brzezinski are known to be certified psychiatrists or psychologists.

Wolff wrote in his book that “100 percent” of the people close to Trump that he spoke to believed the president was “incapable of functioning in his job.”

That claim sparked a firestorm of attacks against Trump from Democrats and liberal media figures. Trump responded multiple times on Twitter.

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“For the past year, we’ve had people around Donald Trump — even around the campaign — saying he’s not mentally fit to be president,” Scarborough said before pointing to his experience writing columns for The Washington Post.

“I’ve written twice in my column a quote about one of the people closest to Donald Trump during the campaign saying he’s got early-stage dementia,” Scarborough said. “And it’s getting worse, and not a single person who works for him doesn’t know he has early signs of dementia.”

“But twice The Washington Post would not let me put that in my column,” Scarborough added. “Which again, I salute them for having a high bar, but we are at this moment.”

Brzezinski chimed in at that point, saying, “Aren’t we?”

The co-hosts then turned to Wolff as Scarborough thanked him for writing his book.

“And until your book came out, this was something we were not allowed to speak about,” Scarborough said.

Wrong. The Washington Post refused to publish Scarborough’s questioning of Trump’s mental fitness to serve as president in his columns — but the “Morning Joe” co-hosts exhibited no such qualms about discussing the president’s sanity on air throughout 2017.

Related: Joe Scarborough: Trump Is in ‘Early Stages of Dementia’ Again

In December, for example, the “Morning Joe” panel said Trump’s slurred words while announcing his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital raised new concerns about his mental health, prompting Brzezinski to say, “There was a struggle happening,” while Scarborough agreed.

In November, Scarborough warned that “people close to [Trump] during the campaign” told him Trump was suffering from the “early stages of dementia,” saying the president “is completely detached from reality.”

Scarborough said in June that Trump “is not a sane, rational human being.” In May, Scarborough speculated about Trump’s “confused mental state,” while Brzezinski said, “You can argue that this president is completely incompetent, maybe even has some issues medically.”

PoliZette writer Kathryn Blackhurst can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter.