Joe Scarborough goes scorched earth on Trump: 'Everybody around Donald Trump knows he's not stable'

Screenshot/MSNBC

Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough

• MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski railed against President Donald Trump on Thursday, claiming that he is "mentally unstable" and unfit to serve.
• This came a day after Trump promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that Scarborough was involved in the 2001 death of an intern in his congressional office.

In a fiery "Morning Joe" segment on Thursday, MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski accused President Donald Trump of being "mentally unstable" a day after Trump promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that Scarborough was involved in the 2001 death of an intern in his congressional office.

The two media personalities, who used to be friendly with Trump and regularly interviewed him during the first months of his 2016 presidential campaign, called on the president's cabinet officials to stand up to him, claiming that those close to the president know he is "mentally unfit."

"We are facing a showdown with a nuclear power and you have somebody inside the White House that the New York Daily News says is mentally unfit, that people close to him say is mentally unfit, that people close to him during the campaign told me had early stages of dementia," Scarborough said. "So I'm just kind of wondering - what's the Cabinet waiting for? What are Republicans in the House and Senate - because it's never going to get more deadly serious than it is now."

Scarborough went on to call the president "completely detached from reality" and claimed that "everybody around Donald Trump knows he's not stable."

"When are we supposed to say this?" Scarborough asked. "After the first nuclear missile goes? Is that when it's proper to bring this up in polite society?"

This came a day after Trump called for Scarborough - as well as MSNBC's president, Phil Griffin - to be fired, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that Scarborough is somehow implicated in the 2001 death of an intern who worked in Scarborough's Florida congressional office.

A medical examiner determined that staffer Lori Klausutis' death was an accident, caused after the 28-year-old, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, collapsed and hit her head on a desk in Scarborough's district office, causing a fatal blood clot.

During the Thursday morning segment, Brzezinski read from a Wednesday New York Daily News editorial, which called Trump a "madman."

"Only those completely under his spell can deny what growing numbers of Americans have long suspected: The President of the United States is profoundly unstable. He is mad. He is by any honest layman's definition mentally unwell," she read.

Scarborough responded to Trump's tweet on Wednesday, repeating his claim that the president is mentally unwell. Brzezinski called Trump's tweet a violation of "basic moral judgment" in a Wednesday statement.

"Today the president crossed another deep and disturbing line with his attacks on Joe. The chief law enforcement officer of the United States of America advanced a false conspiracy theory to intimidate the press and cause a chilling effect on the First Amendment," Brzezinski said. "Joe and I are not intimidated. And his bizarre behavior contravenes both the Constitution and basic moral judgment."

This comes as the president has continued to publicly and privately entertain conspiracy theories, including the long-debunked claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the US. He also continues to falsely claim that undocumented immigrants helped Hillary Clinton win the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election, according to The New York Times.

Another Times report suggested the 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape, in which the president boasted about groping women, isn't real, though Trump publicly acknowledged its authenticity during the presidential campaign.