The "Morning Joe" panel on MSNBC Monday morning thrashed the IRS for its targeting of conservative groups that senior officials were aware of back in 2011, at different turns calling it "chilling," "damning" and wondering "what the hell were they thinking."
The IRS apologized Friday for what it called "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups with "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their name during the 2012 election to allegedly see if they were violating tax-exempt status, but a Wall Street Journal article Monday reported it also purposely scrutinized ones worried about government spending, debt or taxes, and those that lobbied to "make America a better place to live," according to new details of a government probe.
"There is no agency that strikes fear in the hearts of Americans more," host Joe Scarborough said. "That is why these stories are so damning and why the guy that runs the administration, the president, needs to get out today and tell the American people, 'I'm going to clean this up so you can trust him again.' Right?"
Former Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Ed Rendell agreed with Scarborough's characterization that "this is about as bad as it gets, isn't it?"
"Absolutely," Rendell said. "I think action has to be taken. The people that knew about this and allowed it to go on should be fired."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich pointed out President Obama has a "huge problem" given the IRS' importance to his signature healthcare legislation.
"Obamacare relies very heavily on the IRS," Gingrich said. "Now every American understands there are elements of the IRS that go off on their own, do what they want to. The effort now is to say it was low-level employees. Yet, those low-level employees apparently saw public reports that they weren’t doing what they were doing and nobody informed the IRS or the treasury."
Gingrich also called the specific targeting by the IRS to be "very, very chilling" for American political liberty.
"How can you have an American government profile against the word patriot?" Gingrich asked. "There is something culturally sick if the American government says if you put that word 'Constitution' in your name, we are going to come after you. Again, this is an administration shocked at the idea of profiling for terrorism but apparently had an entire part of the IRS that was profiling for patriotism."
While investigative journalist Carl Bernstein tried to use his platform to defend against Gingrich's criticism of government overreach, he agreed with Gingrich that the turn of events was disturbing.
"Here, you are absolutely right, Mr. Speaker, that if the IRS bureaucracy at any level all the way up to the top, whoever is responsible, ought to go," he said. "It's simple as that, and we ought to find out what the hell were they thinking."