Joe Scarborough accused of 'cheap shot' after slapping down guest's Mamdani attack

There was a rare and highly contentious disagreement between “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough and MS NOW contributor Donny Deutsch on Wednesday morning as the two battled over the influence of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Following Tuesday’s election, when Mamdani-endorsed candidates won stunning victories, Deutsch raised the alarm that the popular NYC mayor will be used against Democrats in the midterm elections.

Scarborough wasn’t having it and told his guest that he lives in a NYC bubble, which led Deutsch to half-mockingly call that characterization a ”cheap shot.”

As Scarborough pointed out to him after repeatedly interrupting, “I'm not cherry-picking! It's going to be the MAGA media that cherry picks today, and they're just going to want to look at New York City, ‘How weird' they go, 'New York City is not the center of the world,' 364 days a year today they will act like, and I hope you don't act like New York City is the center of the world, because it's a big country out there.”

“You know what there's what's called ‘badge branding,'” Deutsch protested. “You know you sell Chevrolets and you use Corvette to kind of sell the whole thing and my concern -- this is from a branding view, not a reality view.”

He added, “I'm not talking about Fox News, I'm talking about if the Republicans are running against Democrats, no matter who the Democrat is, they say the Democratic Party stands for this, the Democratic Party stands for that.”

“How many points did [New Jersey Democrat] Mikie Sherrill win by when we heard she was going to lose," Scarborough asked as Deutsch tried to talk over him, which led the MS NOW host to tell him, "Hold on a second."

"How many, how many points did [Virginia Democrat] Abigail Spanberger win in Virginia? Despite being told, ‘Oh, the Democrats are all Socialists.' Are all these the exact thing, Donny?” Scarborough parried.

Scarborough later joked, "I do wish that Donny would get off the Upper East Side once in a while, but you never see Donny's place on the Upper East side. He's got people running around with little red vests sweeping his front. You know, I mean he doesn't leave the Upper East Side --."

"Cheap shot, cheap shot, cheap shot," his guest repeated while shaking his head.

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