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Scarborough Attacks Trump for Spreading Epstein Conspiracy, Days After Spreading Epstein Conspiracies

"How predictably... Russian"

August 12, 2019

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough attacked President Donald Trump for spreading conspiracy theories about the suicide of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, despite the fact that Scarborough and his Morning Joe colleagues spread Epstein conspiracy theories only days earlier.

Trump retweeted a tweet from a supporter Saturday denying that Epstein committed suicide and claiming that the billionaire financier "had information on Bill Clinton & now he's dead." The Monday Morning Joe panel condemned Trump for spreading the conspiracy, which has no basis in fact.

"The president almost does Anthony Scaramucci's work for him when Scaramucci suggests that the president is getting worse..." Scarborough said. "How bad things have gotten, how chaotic things have gotten... how many people around the president who say his management style is becoming outrageously unmoored."

"And then the president caps all that off by accusing the Clintons of murder. It does just seem to keep getting worse and the president seems to become more and more unbalanced," he concluded.

But Scarborough engaged in the exact same behavior the morning of Epstein's suicide, pointedly suggesting in tweets that the manner of his death was "predictably Russian" and sarcastically saying "How convenient for a lot of rich and powerful men."

Scarborough also retweeted tweets from Billions show-runner Brian Koppelman, Morning Joe producer Michael Del Moro, and frequent Morning Joe guest Mike Barnicle—also on the Monday panel—spreading conspiracies about the Epstein suicide. At one point, Scarborough replied to Koppelman with "Bingo!"

After other journalists called out Scarborough for his baseless conspiracy-mongering, Scarborough indicated that it was just "a glib tweet of mine while drinking coffee" and his intention was to mock the Clinton murder conspiracies of the '90s. When CNN's Andrew Kaczynski asked why he then retweeted individuals genuinely suggesting a conspiracy theory, Scarborough replied by correcting his grammar.

Frequent MSNBC and Morning Joe personality John Heilemann also spread Epstein conspiracy theories the same day, quote-tweeting Koppelman's tweet with a Russian flag.