An Illinois Republican congressman warned President Donald Trump Sunday to “just stop” with his outrageous insinuations that MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough is a murderer.
“Completely unfounded conspiracy. Just stop,” a frustrated Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted, lashing Trump’s attack on Scarborough, a frequent critic of the president. “Stop spreading it, stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us,” he added, apparently referring to Republicans and future elections — or possibly America.
GOP critics weren’t concerned about Trump pulling down the party alone.
Kinzinger was one of the hordes of critics who packed Twitter with outraged responses after Trump repeatedly indicated that Scarborough was somehow linked to the death of a former intern when he was a Florida congressman. Authorities determined that the 2001 death of 28-year-old intern Lori Lausutis was accidental after she collapsed of an undiagnosed heart condition and struck her head on a desk.
Scarborough’s wife and co-host, Mika Brzezinski, called Trump a “cruel, disgusting. sick person” on their program Wednesday. “He’s once again tweeting conspiracy theories about Joe, falsely accusing him of murder,” she said.
Trump’s drumbeat attack on Scarborough, co-host of “Morning Joe,” and vicious tweets linking followers to an unhinged conspiracy site, is widely regarded as a desperate attempt by the president to distract the public. He hopes to direct attention away from criticism of his lack of leadership during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis that has now claimed nearly 100,000 lives, critics argue.
For many, the unwarranted attack on a critic in the media was a bridge too far, even for Trump.
Tweets also lit up with criticism for Twitter and CEO Jack Dorsey for not taking down Trump’s unfounded murder insinuation against Scarborough, while cracking down on other users for far less important policy violations.
Brzezinski said in a tweet Wednesday that she planned to speak to Dorsey about getting the president banned from the social media platform for violating Twitter’s policies “every day.”
Twitter did not immediately respond to a HuffPost request for comment.
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