Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” had to be updated on the cost of butter, and the reality shocked him and prompted him to question whether or not it was packaged in gold.
If ever there were a microcosm of how out of touch elites in the media are, this is it.
The conversation on the show began with Joe relaying a story about a Kamala Harris supporter who had just come from the grocery store and, based on the price of butter, could only conclude that Donald Trump was poised to win the election.
“A few weeks ago, somebody who was going to be voting for Kamala Harris came up to me and said, ‘Oh my God, Trump’s going to win,” Scarborough began. “I went to the grocery store butter is over $3.”
The host said he “kinda laughed” at the simplicity of the argument, saying it was “reductive” to himself while pretending to lend credence to the shopper out loud.
At one point, Mika Brzezinski chimed in to let her husband know that the $3 estimate was rather … generous.
“It’s $7,” she interrupted. “I’m just saying it’s seven.”
“Butter is $7?” Scarborough, whose net worth is estimated at $25 million, asked in a shocked tone. “What, is it framed in gold?”
Scarborough went on to concede that inflation and the resulting cost of goods were a major factor in deciding the election.
“If you look at the cost of groceries, if you look at the cost of gas, if you look at the cost of things compared to four years ago it was a very simple answer for working-class Americans,” he said.
On that, he is correct. How many people could have boiled the choice down to the fact that a small grocery bill of $50 is now suddenly $120 under this administration?
The MSNBC host, following the election, lamented the fact that Democrats are “radically disconnected from rest of the country.”
Ironically, that would include anybody too ignorant to know that the cost of butter – or milk, or eggs, or food in general – is absurdly high.
Claire McCaskill, the former Democratic senator from Missouri, told a panel on the show Wednesday morning that “Donald Trump knows our country better than we do.”
Yeah, when you’re not aware of how much basic everyday things are, then you know very little about what the people in this country are going through.
The ignorance continued in Thursday’s segment with Brzezinski trying to backpedal by saying the high cost of butter is due to price gouging, while contributor Willie Geist joked that she’s only buying hand-churned butter.
In other words, you simps just need to keep buying the generic butter and leave the rest to those of us whose wallets are fatter.
Behind those jokes, Scarborough pointed out in disbelief, “Anyway, the cost of groceries — way too high and it did have an impact. This guy was right at the end of the day.”
It’s not surprising that Scarborough and his crew are this out of touch, but it does provide a peak behind the curtain of why elite media hosts like he and his wife really had no idea Trump and the Republicans were going to surf a red wave into the election. They never saw it coming.
And it isn’t a new thing. Scarborough and the folks at “Morning Joe” have been consistently out of touch with reality when it comes to the economy.
It was less than a year ago that Joe was on the airwaves declaring that the economy was the best it had ever been – and anybody who didn’t see that was the victim of a “perversion” of facts from conservative media.
“But you talked about the economy and you talked about people worrying about where things are. This is the perversion. This is the perversion of these networks that twist and contort the reality if their guy or woman is not in office,” he insisted. “We have an economy that’s stronger than ever.”
Scarborough also had a guest telling viewers that lower prices, and more affordable groceries, are actually “kind of a bad thing.”
MSNBC’s @SteveRattner says Americans should get acclimated to always increasing prices, as a lower cost of living “is kind of a bad thing” pic.twitter.com/XODsmE72hW
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 13, 2023
“This comes as a shock to them, and they – some of them at least kind of expect prices to go back down again to where they were before,” investor Steve Rattner said. “That doesn’t happen. In fact, deflation is actually kind of a bad thing.”
Lower prices? Stretching your dollar? Who needs that noise, right?
Scarborough, meanwhile, kept whistling through the graveyard about the cost of living right up until a few days before the election, insisting whoever was to win would be in good shape going forward.
“The next president inherits a remarkable economy,” he claimed.
Remarkable economies don’t lead to $7 butter, Joe. But it does lead to a second Trump term. And you didn’t see either of those things coming, did you?
