The "Morning Joe" roundtable spent a portion of Tuesday's show focused on knocking Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) after she supported Bill and Hillary Clinton for years, but then said earlier this month that then-President Bill Clinton should have resigned over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Mediaite flagged a discussion that began with talk of Democratic lawmakers forcing Sen. Al Franken’s (D., Minn.) hand into resigning after multiple sexual harassment allegations came out against him. MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski accused Democrats of running out their friend from office for "their own political convenience," or because "they want to run for president."
The MSNBC hosts were talking about lawmakers who expressed regret over calls for Franken to resign, and instead wish the senator had been given due process through an investigation by the Ethics Committee. Earlier in December, a number of female Democratic senators came forward to call for Franken's resignation, and they were soon joined by many of their male counterparts.
Fellow table member Mike Barnicle said during the discussion he believes the calls for Franken to resign were politically motivated to get a Democrat elected over Republican candidate Roy Moore, who has faced sexual misconduct allegations of his own from multiple women, in Alabama's special election for U.S. Senate.
"I think Alabama could have been won without Al Franken resigning," Brzezinski responded.
The conversation often shifted to Gillibrand's involvement in the matter. The New York Democrat, who spearheaded the movement to call for Franken’s resignation and a leader in advocating for justice for victims of sexual harassment and assault, has come under fire for suddenly shifting on her long-term support for the Clintons.
"Are women the judge, the jury, and the cops?" Brzezinski asked. "Is that where we want to go? Because I don’t see us getting hired if that’s the case. So we need to figure out a better way to get rid of harassers–real harassers."
Scarborough was physically upset with Gillibrand’s hypocrisy in saying Bill Clinton should have resigned from his seat as president during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
"I actually like Kirsten Gillibrand, but I ask a question to everybody sitting at this table and everybody watching that can hear me: does anybody believe that Kirsten Gillibrand’s position on the Clintons would be what it is today if Hillary Clinton had been elected President of the United States?" Scarborough posed a hypothetical.
"No," Brzezinski said.
"Kirsten Gillibrand, who rode in the Clintons’ wake for decades, would still be riding in that wake right now," Scarborough continued.
The MSNBC host attempted to move on from the issue, but co-host Brzezinski later came back to it.
"I think that there’s a chance she'll run for president someday, and I think I might support her. But she has to deal with her Clinton issue," Brzezinski said of Gillibrand. "She has to address the cameras and answer the question as to what was the motivation behind her change of opinion about the Clintons? Because for me, for the ten years that I have been on this show, I have been extremely critical and concerned about the Clintons because of their abuse of women. I don’t know how your position could change on this. And I’d like to know about that process."
"And I'm sure there is a fair process," she added.
"When did it change and what else was out there that changed other than Hillary Clinton losing, and the Clintons for the first time in 25 years being out of power of some sort?" Scarborough posed.
"And I love what you said about the Clintons," Brzezinski said, directing her comment at Gillibrand. "I just want to understand how you go there."