"Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski ripped into White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday for her attacks on the press, calling her a liar who does not intend to tell the truth when she takes the podium.
Sanders had a testy exchange with reporters on Monday regarding erroneous media reports about the Trump administration over the past two weeks, accusing the press at times of "purposefully misleading" the American people.
"Like the president does, like every day?" Brzezinski asked after the clip of Sanders played, as the live audience for the show applauded.
With the special Senate election Tuesday in Alabama, "Morning Joe" taped the show at a restaurant in Mountain Brook.
"My God," Brzezinski said. "How can they keep a straight face in the White House briefing room? I would literally laugh hysterically. How do you even listen to her say those things and not just walk out? At this point, those briefings are useless. She does not say anything that is truthful, and she does not intend to when she walks out there."
Co-host Joe Scarborough said they were yelling "preach" in the back of the restaurant.
"It's incredible," Brzezinski said.
Scarborough noted there was a significant hostility from the press toward President Donald Trump, just as there was toward candidate Trump, and he wondered if the relationship between the two was irreparable.
Willie Geist said there was a "new aggressiveness" in the media toward Trump and there had been "embarrassing mistakes" in recent weeks regarding the administration, such as the erroneous ABC News report that Trump as a candidate directed Michael Flynn to contact the Russians. Later on, ABC corrected it to say that Trump did so as president-elect, making the scoop effectively meaningless.
But Geist said the idea reporters purposefully misled the public was "untrue," in spite of any biases they may have.
"What makes it even worse, what makes it incredibly bad and dangerous, quite frankly a danger to our republic, is that she's the one protecting a president who does that every day, who watches TV every day and tweets stupidity, lies, conspiracy theories, bullies people," Brzezinski said, noting one conspiracy theory included a story about Scarborough and a former congressional intern's death.
Brzezinski said Sanders' role in protecting Trump was helping to damage the country.