Tuesday's episode of Morning Joe did its best to rain on yesterday's parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States Army.
First up was MSNBC commentator Anand Giridharadas—a man who seemingly has on his mind a certain issue affecting some men.
Of all the adjectives he might have chosen, Giridharadas called the parade "flaccid." This from the fellow who has selected as his signature look [see screencap] a rigidly erect hairdo.
This man suggested Trump's inspiration for the parade was from communist China and North Korea. Fact check: False. He's long cited Bastille Day in democratic France.
Then there was Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. He began by diminishing the size of Trump's 2024 victory, noting it was only 1.5%. Robinson ignored the fact that Trump was the first Republican in 20 years to win the popular vote, and that he swept all seven swing states.
Robinson said that the margin of Trump's win didn't constitute an "overwhelming mandate for proto-fascism," which he apparently thought the parade represented. To which tens of millions of Americans would likely respond, "You're right. We didn't vote for proto-fascism. We voted for capitalism and border control."
But you do have to give Robinson full marks for syntax: not just fascism, but "proto-fascism." Dials the fright factor to 11.
And finally, there was Joe Scarborough, who yet again worked in the fact that he had been a member of Congress.
Noting that his former district is home to more military retirees than any other in America, Scarborough was "pretty sure" that if he still represented them, they would say that, rather than spending money on the parade, the funds should have been directed to various programs designed to support veterans. That sounds borrowed from Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin from his show yesterday.
I'm "pretty sure" those veterans would rather have the money spent on a military parade than on, say, a "transgender opera in Colombia" funded by USAID. Don't remember Scarborough kvetching about that during Biden's tenure.
While Morning Joe tried to pan the parade, other liberal voices weren't nearly so negative, among them Scarborough's MSNBC liberal colleagues Chris Hayes and Ali Velshi.
Fox News reported this exchange between the two:
Hayes said that whereas Trump rallies can have "kind of a dark, malevolent energy, sometimes in them, not always, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the energy on the Mall today."
Velshi agreed: "Correct. You’re really correct about that, Chris, and it’s something we were watching for. I’m just sort of surprised by the number of people who were at the front of the parade watching, cheering, and then would come and ask to take a selfie. This is a very different, this is a very different mood here."
And ardent anti-Trumper Max Boot has written [emphasis added]:
"My worry was that Trump would turn the Army parade into just another political pageant. Those concerns only grew when I saw how many of the spectators were wearing MAGA hats or shirts. But my apprehension began to melt away as soon as the music started to play and the soldiers began to march. Dear reader, I hope you do not think I am going soft on Trump if I tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed the entire parade."
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
6/17/25
6:46 am EDTJONATHAN LEMIRE: And I know you were focused on what happened in Washington with the military parade. A lot of, there were a lot of concern about the images that President Trump was trying to create there, in addition to, beyond the perhaps taxpayer expenditures. But you found comforting the crowd just didn't show up.
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: They didn't. It was a flaccid and sad parade. And after, you know, people have seen now the images of the kind of half-empty bleachers, of the officials kind of yawning and not particularly excited about their own parade that they'd ordered up.
Look, Donald Trump tried to use the United States Armed Forces as a birthday party rental company, right? He tried to throw himself a birthday using the United States Armed Forces. And what's so interesting, there were these memes that started doing the rounds of these pictures from the parade, pictures like what you're seeing, but also the actual marching, juxtaposed with pictures of military parades of the kind we know Trump likes. The kind of North Korean, Chinese marching in lockstep, thousands of people in these like square formations, the kicking going up and down, the arms going up and down.
We know that's what he wanted. And in the United States of America, he was not able to get it despite his power and being the Commander-in-Chief.
. . .
EUGENE ROBINSON: The split screen is what I thought was so fascinating, because you had on the one hand, the military parade that wasn't, there was no goose stepping, none of that. And then you had 5 million people in demonstrations around the country against what President Trump is doing.
What it brought to mind to me was a number that, that Joe Scarborough mentioned earlier, 1.5%. That was the margin between the 77 million votes that Donald Trump got and the 75 million that Kamala Harris got.
And it's not this overwhelming mandate for proto-fascism.
. . .
JOE SCARBOROUGH: My feeling is, of course, we want to always salute our men and women in uniform. My guess is, serving in a district that had more military retirees than any other district in America, my guess is they would say, you know what, use that money to help with VA benefits. Use that money to strengthen the VA instead of gutting the VA . . . That's just generally my thought.
Again, serving in a district that had six, seven military bases and more military retirees than any district in America. I think most of those people, who obviously love the military, would look at that military parade and come to me if I were still representing them and saying, why do we have cuts at the VA? Why is Congress and the White House not keeping their promise on veterans health care, on military retirees health care? But they're running parades that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm pretty sure that's what I would hear from my constituents.