Joe Scarborough Blames Greg Abbott For Mall Shooting And More

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said that Governor Greg Abbott’s negligence (R-TX) was to blame for the shooting that took place on Saturday at an outlet mall in his state — and another deadly incident involving a man who drove a vehicle into a crowd of migrants — arguing that Abbott was “refusing” to protect Texans.

Scarborough and his cohost Mika Brzezinski addressed the weekend’s violence on Monday’s broadcast of “Morning Joe,” beginning with an editorial sent to the governor by The Dallas Morning News editorial board.

WATCH:

"There is a sickness in the state of Texas and that sickness starts at the very top with Greg Abbott, who refuses to protect little children…whether it's at school or church or shopping malls or even inside their own homes." —@joenbc pic.twitter.com/LC5Z6yAprT

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) May 8, 2023

The letter called on Abbott to take action on gun violence, claiming it was not “conservative” to not act when there was a problem, saying, “You must speak to the terrible imbalance that you and Republican leaders have created between the individual liberty of nearly unrestricted ownership of the most powerful rifles and guns versus the increasing decline in society’s ability to function without constant fear of violent death.”

Scarborough immediately launched his attack on Abbott as well, saying, “You have a group of migrants being run down and killed here. The U.S. has by far the highest child and teen firearm mortality rate among poor countries. Our little children are being slaughtered. And Greg Abbott has nothing to say about it. He just wants to change the subject.”

Scarborough went on to claim that Abbott, after such acts of violence, was more interested in the alleged perpetrator’s immigration status than he was in how the individual was able to get his hands on a firearm.

“So is it any surprise that we have migrants being run over with this sort of lack of leadership, the sort of cynicism, this sort of hatred in Texas? Is it any surprise that we have migrants, on Sunday morning, some of them probably going to church, getting run over while they’re waiting for a bus, or that we have a neo-Nazi sympathizers, possible white supremacists going to malls to gun down other people?” he continued.

Scarborough finished with a direct accusation, saying, “There is a sickness in the state of Texas, and that sickness starts at the very top with Greg Abbott, who refuses to protect little children in the state of Texas, whether it’s at school or whether it’s his church or whether it’s at shopping malls or even inside their own homes.”