'Exactly what fascists would do': Morning Joe and Mika blast Trump's 'authoritarian' plans

Donald Trump is scheming to consolidate power under an obscure legal theory if he's re-elected to a second term, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski described the plot as "fascist."

The former president and his allies are planning to reorganize the executive branch to give him unprecedented power in a potential second term, and the "Morning Joe" co-hosts expressed grave concerns about his plans to stack the government with loyalists and sycophants.

"A Trump campaign spokesperson did not deny the plans, but instead said the former president has, quote, 'laid out a bold and transparent agenda for his second term,'" Brzezinski said. "This is one of those vintage Trump moments, Joe, where his base will love this in some ways."

"Well, they'll love it, as we talked about last night, because it suggests that he is strong," Scarborough said. "Authoritarianism has swept the Republican Party. It used to be small government, [but] small government has been replaced by authoritarianism. Look at Ron DeSantis to see if a baseball team, a professional baseball team, tweets their sympathy for Uvalde, and he uses the power of the central state to punish that baseball team. If Walt Disney talks, the largest employer in the state, mind you, decides they're going to celebrate diversity, he uses all the powers of the centralized state to try to break corporations, to intimidate corporations. It's authoritarianism. Even cruise liners, again, the biggest industries in the state, Ron DeSantis has learned very well from Donald Trump and, you know, trying to force cruise liners to open up during the pandemic without using any safeguards. He does the same with small business owners. This is what Donald Trump is talking about."

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Trump's plan would overturn centuries of constitutional norms and probably even Madisonian democracy, Scarborough said.

"It's from [James] Madison, who was a conservative hero for generations," Scarborough said. "From Madison to Mussolini, all the power and the executive branch, the power to shut down TV stations, the power to prefer certain businesses to other businesses. It is exactly what fascists do."

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