'My God!' Morning Joe bursts out laughing over Trump official's 'fraudster' slurs

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough laughed out loud at the contrast between commerce secretary Howard Lutnick slurring Social Security recipients and the message delivered at rallies headlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Donald Trump's commerce secretary dismissed concerns about DOGE disruptions to Social Security entitlements, saying that only a "fraudster" would complain if payments were stopped and cited his 94-year-old mother-in-law as an exemple.

"She wouldn’t call and complain," Lutnick told a podcaster last week. “She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining."

The "Morning Joe" host noted the difference between that billionaire businessman's remarks and the message delivered by Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez on their well-attended "fighting oligarchy" tour.

"I mean, his mother [in-law] wouldn't complain because she's got a billionaire for a son," Scarborough said, laughing. "'Hey, son, my $364 didn't come this past month.' By the way, he's, like, running the Commerce Department. You've got the world's richest man on the planet [Elon Musk] that's going around again, firing vets, slashing VA health care and saying that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme."

"You know, I'm usually skeptical when people say that campaign ads write themselves but, my God, as I said before, if the Democrats can't do something with this, they should get into the used car selling business," Scarborough added, laughing harder. "Go to France."

The Bulwark's Sam Stein agreed, saying that Democrats should "disband" if they can't craft a message around Musk's cuts and Lutnick's comments.

"Honestly, when I saw it, I had to do a double take and I rewound it because I couldn't believe he said it," Stein said, also laughing. "You just, I've never heard such a disorienting statement politically in, what, 17, 18 years? It's crazy."

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"I think you're getting at something really important here," Stein added, "and I think this is why Bernie's reaching people. Let's just take two things Howard Lutnick said over the past week. One was that statement in which he said his mother [in-law] wouldn't complain, and obviously that sounds crazy coming from someone who's a billionaire.

"But then the other thing he did is he went on TV and he said he encouraged people to buy Tesla stock, and I think that's the contrast, really, that that Bernie and AOC and others are getting at, which is you're telling poor people not to complain about cuts to Social Security, [and] at the same time, you're turning around and trying to pump up the stock for the richest man in the world, who happens to be a Trump advisor, and that's oligarchy. That is oligarchy, and that's why 34,000 people are coming out to Denver."

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