All that was missing was Bernie’s trademark “gr-e-e-e-e-d” . . . 

If you had only read the transcript, you might have thought it was the socialist senator from Vermont who was inveighing against a government for billionaires. “of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires.”

But no! That was born-again liberal populist Joe Scarborough on today’s Morning Joe. Scarborough demanded that former Ohio congressman Tim Ryan [who lost to J.D. Vance in the 2022 senatorial race] explain how Democrats have lost Ohio to the Republicans, given the disparity between the household income of only $34,000 in Youngstown, and the wealth of those billionaires.

Banging his desk in frustration, Scarborough clamored, “How does that happen? How do Democrats miss that lay-up? Average household, $34,000? Yeah. Voting for the government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, over and over again. How could it be that Ohio is gone?”

Ryan blamed Bill Clinton [while trying to stay in his good graces by claiming to “love” him] and the Democrats who supported NAFTA, which led to the export of many Ohio jobs to Mexico. Scarborough wasn’t satisfied, saying NAFTA was adopted in 1994, and Dems could have come up with something since then.

If you didn’t know better, you might think ex-Republican Scarborough, so frustrated by Trump having carried Ohio, has gone full Democrat. Oh, wait.

Say: here’s an idea. If Scarborough finds himself out on the sidewalk after Comcast spins off MSNBC, Joe could make himself over as a Democrat election consultant. Trump won Ohio by 11 points in November. But since Joe thinks it was “lay-up” easy for Dems to have won the state, he’s bound to have great ideas to turn the electoral map blue. After Joe puts Ohio in the Dem column in 2028, it’s on to Oklahoma!

Speaking of elections: Ryan’s been doing a lot of TV recently. As mentioned, he lost to Vance in the 2022 senatorial race. But there’ll be an open gubernatorial election in Ohio in 2026, because Mike DeWine is term-limited. Odds Ryan makes a run for it? About the same as my Buffalo Bills clinching a playoff spot this year.  

Here’s the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
12/17/24
6:40 am EDT

JOE SCARBOROUGH: How can it be that in Youngstown, Ohio, the average salary last year was $34,000 a year for a family, for a household? Household average salary last year, $34,000. 

And yet a government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, won Ohio overwhelmingly. How does that happen? How do Democrats miss that layup? Why have they continued to miss that layup for years? Average household, $34,000? Yeah. 

Voting for the government of the billionaires, for the billionaires, by the billionaires, over and over again. How could it be that Ohio is gone? 

TIM RYAN: I don’t think Ohio’s gone, but they saw Trump as the blue-collar billionaire who’s going to go in and help fix it, and maybe he’s the only guy that could. 

And unfortunately, as much as I love Bill Clinton, they see the Democrats as the ones who passed NAFTA and led us through globalization. And those workers at places like Delphi or General Motors, we literally watched those jobs go from Warren, Ohio, over the border into the maquiladoras in Mexico, and shipped the product back. 

Our workers were unfolding machines, my cousin did, from the factory floor and shipped it to China. Workers went to Mexico. 

SCARBOROUGH: That happened in 1994. 

RYAN: It’s still in the DNA, Joe. 

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, I mean, Democrats can’t figure something out from 1994 forward? 

RYAN: Well, no, that’s the problem, is they said, you did this, and Obama was in for eight years, and things have not gotten any better. Now, finally, to Biden’s credit, we are re-industrializing the country. But we didn’t have a reform re-industrializing, we’re taking on those guys, we’re putting —

There’s a battery plant outside of Youngstown, 2,000 UAW jobs, $30 bucks an hour, just renegotiated the contract. We didn’t hear about that. So all the upside, we didn’t talk about. All the reforms that we were trying to make around insulin and these other things. 

You didn’t hear a ton about it. It wasn’t this big, bold agenda. It was really piecemeal. And we need that big reform agenda. Carry a big stick. 

SCARBOROUGH: All right. 

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan, always good to see you. Thank you for coming on this morning.