Joe Scarborough bashed Republican attacks on the First Amendment in the wake of last Wednesday’s assassination of Charlie Kirk.
“Those who would use this event to stifle free speech and go after people they consider political enemies certainly didn’t hear much of what Charlie Kirk had to say when he said, ‘We have to allow all kinds of speech,’” the “Morning Joe” host said Tuesday.
The 62-year-old MSNBC host then wondered why Republicans “like Stephen Miller” characterize political violence as a “one-sided issue” before rattling off a list of attacks by right-wing extremists perpetrated against prominent liberal figures.
He recounted the June 2025 attack on Democratic Minnesota legislators, which included the killings of State Sen. Melissa Hortman and her husband and the shootings of State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife; the April 2025 arson attack on Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home; and the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi.
Scarborough recalled how Republicans “laughed” following the 2022 attack on Pelosi, 82, by a far-right conspiracy theorist.
“We heard laughter. We heard jokes repeatedly from the president of the United States,” said Scarborough. “I remember watching him speak to the California Republican Party and they died laughing. They thought it was hysterical that an 82-year-old man was almost beaten to death in his own home by a hammer.”
In a 2023 campaign stop, Trump spoke to a crowd in California and said, “How’s [Nancy Pelosi’s] husband doing? She’s against having a wall at our border even though she has a wall around her house—which obviously didn’t do a very good job.”
On Monday, President Trump, 79, didn’t recall Melissa Hortman’s name, but said he would have considered ordering flags to fly at half-mast for her as he did for Kirk had he been asked. At the time, Trump admitted to not calling Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz after the incident, saying it would be a “waste of time.”
Scarborough’s comments come as Republican politicians, including the president, have focused their ire on “left-wing extremists” in the wake of last Wednesday’s assassination of 31-year-old conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Republican politicians have spoken about cracking down on left-wing organizations and have already begun enacting retribution against people who spoke ill of Kirk online after his killing. Online, conservative activists are building a database of such commenters and pushed to get people fired because they criticized Kirk.
The motives of Kirk’s suspected shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, remain unknown.
Scarborough also pointed to the 2017 attack on Republican Rep. Steve Scalise by a left-wing extremist as evidence that there have been politically motivated attacks from extremists on both sides in the past decade.
“I don’t know who you think you’re lying to, but we know there’s a problem on both sides,” he said. “We have to come together or this will continue.”
Last Friday, MSNBC execs warned talent to “do better” after the network fired analyst Matthew Dowd for being critical of Kirk’s rhetoric on air in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
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