MSNBC hosts say Trump's wiretapping claims show the US is 'in crisis

The end of the world is nigh. Don't believe it? Just ask MSNBC "Morning Joe" hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.

The cable news duo expressed gloom and doom Monday because of President Donald Trump's administration, despite the fact that they invited Trump on their "Morning Joe" program so many times during the campaign that onetime Republican presidential candidate and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore once referred to the show as "Morning Trump."

Now, just more than one month into Trump's presidency, Brzezinski and Scarborough have drastically changed their tune.

"When this presidency started, I had hope and an open mind," Brzezinski said Monday. "I am losing hope and my mind is closing on the potential that we're going to have a — any potential for this presidency at all."

Scarborough, who attended Trump's joint address to Congress Tuesday night, said that was the moment when "a lot of people" thought Trump would start acting more "presidential."

"He even had [liberal commentator and former Obama adviser] Van Jones over at CNN saying that this is the moment that Donald Trump becomes president of the United States. No, he's been president because millions and millions of voters made him that," Scarborough said.

However, that all changed over the weekend with just one tweet, Scarborough said.

"What Donald Trump did on Saturday morning has shaken this government and the confidence of its people to the core," Scarborough said, referring to Trump accusing former President Barack Obama of illegally wiretapping Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" Trump tweeted, providing no evidence for the claim.

Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis later called the accusation "simply false," saying the White House never "ordered surveillance of any U.S. citizen."

A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen,” he added. “Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.

Republicans and Democrats alike have asked the Trump administration to provide whatever evidence it may have that suggests Trump's phones may have indeed have been wiretapped by the former administration. Even FBI Director James Comey reportedly asked the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump's wiretapping claims.

Officials within that department, led by Trump appointee Attorney General Jeff Sessions, denied the request.

"It is hard to overstate how reckless that tweet was," Scarborough said Monday. "The 45th president of the United States accusing the 44th president of the United States of tapping his phones, personally tapping his phones, calling him 'sick.'"

Noting how Trump once questioned whether Obama was even born in the United States, Scarborough said "context is necessary" when comparing Trump's so-called birtherism to his latest claim about Obama.

"It is one thing when a reality TV star accuses a president of a sleazy conspiratorial theory," Scarborough explained, "but when a president of the United States accuses another president, the context changes and it becomes dangerous."

Scarborough cited a Wall Street Journal editorial published Monday titled, "Washington goes nuts," which argues that the U.S. has "reached the point where basic questions about U.S. institutions and trust in government are at stake."

Then, continuing on his gloom and doom summary, Scarborough declared the U.S. "in crisis."

"There is a full-fledged war now between the president, past presidents, the intel community, the FBI, the FBI trying to get the Justice Department to condemn these lies, the Justice Department in the hands of Jeff Sessions and the president of the United States refusing to condemn these lies so far. We are in crisis," Scarborough said.

Brzezinski agreed, adding: "It's an administration that has lost all credibility at this point."

(H/T: Mediaite)