For years now, Donald Trump has been the person Joe Scarborough most likes to hate. However there’s one other Republican who has emerged as a detailed second amongst individuals Scarborough despises: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. NewsBusters has famous Scarborough’s disdain for DeSantis various occasions (right here and right here). Scarborough was again at his diss-DeSantis shtick on Wednesday’s Morning Joe.

Handicapping the GOP major discipline, Scarborough predicted that DeSantis’ marketing campaign “goes to finish very badly . . . It’ll begin as excessive as a Chinese language balloon over Montana, and by the point it will get to South Carolina, they’ll be on the lookout for wreckage.” 

In distinction, Scarborough pumped up the prospects of Chris Sununu. He depicted the New Hampshire Governor as somebody who “does not put up with numerous what,” could be very in style in his dwelling state [where the first primary is held after the Iowa caucuses], and may “punch again” with Trump on a debate stage.

So, what explains Scarborough’s raging animosity towards DeSantis? It is perhaps the usual liberal-media objective of tearing down a attainable Republican frontrunner for one they like for Democrats to run towards a la 2016. However sprinkle in a jot of jealousy maybe on Scarborough’s half.

Scarborough reportedly toyed with the thought of working for president himself in 2020. And now he sees his fellow Floridian DeSantis with a sensible shot on the White Home. Joe, trying within the mirror, telling himself, “I coulda been a contender?”

In idea, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley ought to have been the subject of the day, on condition that she put out her announcement video on Tuesday. Wednesday’s CNN This Morning gave her numerous play. However Morning Joe gave Haley comparatively quick shrift, with restricted dialogue and Scarborough placing her over/beneath odds of profitable the nomination at a paltry 2.5 %.

Katty Kay, the BBCer who doubles as a Morning Joe common, was a dependable liberal. However she has usually been detest to specific sturdy opinions. Not this time. She lit into DeSantis as strongly as did Scarborough, envisioning his marketing campaign “crash[ing] within the water,” and predicting that he can be incapable of standing as much as Trump, who will “stroll throughout him.”

Joe Scarborough trashing Ron DeSantis and pumping up the GOP major prospects of Chris Sununu was sponsored partly by Sleep Quantity, GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Shingrix, and Priceline.

This is the transcript.

MSNBC’s Morning Joe
2/15/23
6:23 am ET

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Effectively, Willie, that Caesars calls you and me once they need to set the traces —

WILLIE GEIST: [chuckles] Yeah.

SCARBOROUGH: — for these political elections. And you’ll bear in mind, weeks out, we put the over/beneath for Macron at 58.5%. 

GEIST: Yeah.

SCARBOROUGH: And it was 58.5%. I’m now able to do the over and beneath for each candidate we simply talked about —

GEIST: Maintain on. I am going to write it down.

SCARBOROUGH: Each candidate we simply talked about. Nikki Haley, the over/beneath, 2.5%. John Bolton, 0.5%. Mike Pompeo, 1.25%. Mike Pence, 5%, over/beneath. Tim Scott, 4.5%. Who else do we’ve got there?

GEIST: You’ve got obtained Larry Hogan, Brian Kemp, Chris Sununu.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, ? I obtained to say — effectively, I imply, Kemp, zero. And Larry Hogan, God bless him, love what he is performed. God bless him, although, on this major. John Bolton 1.5%. I am sorry. That is just about it. 

However, , Sununu is an attention-grabbing one. And I am not prepared to maintain him in low single digits. Perhaps put him at 7.5%. However he is an attention-grabbing one. I nonetheless, I nonetheless assume — and, and, and Gene, I nonetheless assume that is Donald Trump’s discipline. 

EUGENE ROBINSON: I feel so.

SCARBOROUGH: I assume everyone you set up on stage, possibly with the exception — and I am going to say this, of Chris Sununu, who sitting at 70-plus % up in New Hampshire, and does not actually put up with numerous what. I feel he can form of punch him again.

ROBINSON: He, possibly he can. You understand, we have got to see how a few of these candidates will carry out on a nationwide stage and the way they play in the remainder of the nation. Together with Ron DeSantis, by the way in which. We’ll need to — I do know he does effectively within the polls, now. However when he will get on the market, he might be, I feel, probably the most humorless, bombastic main candidate for president in a very long time.

SCARBOROUGH: I feel that is going to finish very badly. I feel that is one among this stuff, he is cloistered, Katty, in Tallahassee. Get him outdoors of Tallahassee, it isn’t going to go effectively.

KATTY KAY: The place did you set DeSantis? What was the over/beneath on Desantis?
>>

SCARBOROUGH: I did not put an over/beneath on him. I feel it may begin, I feel it may begin as excessive as a Chinese language balloon over Montana, and —

KAY: — and finish about —

SCARBOROUGH: And by the point it will get to South Carolina — 

KAY: —it is crashed within the water.

SCARBOROUGH: It is gonna–yeah. They will be on the lookout for wreckage.

KAY: I converse to a fairly assured, once they get, Desantis will not be capable of face up to the Trump juggernaut of assaults when it occurs. He is too thin-skinned, he is too defensive —

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.

KAY: — too awkward on a debate stage, and Trump will stroll throughout him.