David Frum, a former George W. Bush speechwriter and now left-leaning columnist, made an appearance on "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, December 4. Frum made a joke about Pete Hegseth, Trump's secretary of defense nominee, and his reported drinking. Mika Brzezinski apologized on air, and Frum then wrote an article, criticizing her and her husband, Joe Scarborough, for being scared of Trump. Joe was not amused and defended her wife and himself from Frum's criticisms the very next day.
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"If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk indeed," Frum said during his appearance on Morning Joe. Later, Brzezinski would apologize for Frum's joke on-air. Frum didn't take it lightly and would write an article in The Atlantic titled "The Sound of Fear On Air."
"It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease," Frum wrote in the article. "I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all."
Scarborough Responds
Joe Scarborough would follow up Frum's article the very next day on "Morning Joe." "That wasn't the sound of fear, that was the sound of civility," Scarborough said. "In saying that Mika had apologized, she didn't apologize. She simply said it was too flippant."
He would later address the several accusations after they visited President-elect Trump at his home in Mar-A-Lago, saying that they did the "corporate thing." "Corporate said, 'Don't say anything. Just keep your head down.' What did the royal say? Never explain, never complain. We did that."
Finally, he countered Frum's comments, especially his joke about Hegseth's reported drinking, stating that the joke was "too flippant for this moment that we're in." "We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear," he said.
He also talked about Frum's joke regarding Fox News, stating that the joke was too strong. "I just want to say there's a lot of good people that work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we want to leave it at that," Scarborough concludes.
