MSNBC “Morning Joe” is the only major television talk show to have predicted Donald Trump’s viability as a presidential candidate from the outset. This video compilation provides a retrospective of hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Willie Geist’s commentary on “Morning Joe,” starting with Trump’s announcement of his bid for the Republican nomination on June 16, 2015.

“Morning Joe” predicted Trump’s chances from Day 1 (March 2, 2016) — Donald Trump announced his bid for the White House on June 16th. Here’s a look-back at Morning Joe’s analysis of Trump’s chances from day one. (Duration 3:26)

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Related interest

Some of the Absolute Worst Predictions of the 2016 Race So Far

By Katherine Krueger
Talking Points Memo
February 10, 2016

Excerpts

Here are just a few of the worst 2016 predictions that pundits and journalists have made so far this election cycle. …

That Trump would flame out early

Conservative pundit Bill Kristol, who has a long, hackish history of being patently wrong, took on new relevance in 2016 as a reliable engine for pumping out fantastically bad predictions about Donald Trump and the Republican race. …

After the first Republican presidential debate in August, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer said Trump was clearly “out of place” and his opponents “left him out in the cold.”

The Huffington Post infamously announced plans last summer to cover Trump only in its entertainment vertical, calling the billionaire’s campaign “a sideshow.” They torpedoed the stunt only after months of Trump polling at the front of the GOP pack, but the Republican frontrunner still draws the site’s ire. HuffPost splashed the oversized headline “NH GOES RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC” across its front page after Trump won the New Hampshire primary.

Ezra Klein, the politics wunderkind and founder of Vox Media, is still on board with Trump losing, and compared his candidacy to Howard Dean’s failed 2004 run: “Trump could just … not win.”

Chris Cillizza, editor of The Fix politics blog at The Washington Post, jumped on the Trump-as-gag-candidate bandwagon early. In a February 2015 piece with the already-back-pedaling headline “Donald Trump might be serious about running for president. He’s still irrelevant,” Cillizza declared: “So, let’s assume – gulp – that Trump is serious this time around. Heck, while we’re at it, let’s assume he actually runs. IT. DOESN’T. MATTER.” …

Jeb! will be the GOP nominee. Period.

It’s difficult to know where to start with the legions of pundits who trafficked in the prevailing wisdom that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would dominate the GOP field and enjoy smooth sailing en route to the party’s nomination. …

Read more at TPM

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Donald Trump’s Chicago Scam

By Joe Scarborough

March 13, 2016

Excerpts

We are grimly warning the world that following Friday night’s fracas in Chicago, America faces a deepening divide that is tearing away at the fabric of this great land.

What mind-numbing nonsense.

Friday’s freak show was as prepackaged as a rerun of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” The only difference was that Donald Trump delivered his lines on the phone from a hotel room in the Windy City instead of on the set of his made-for-TV boardroom.

It was all a scam.

Has anyone noticed that Trump’s campaign now regularly stages media events designed to eclipse any negative coverage that predictably follows Republican debates? …

As has been the case throughout the entire 2016 cycle, Trump thrives on the political chaos that he helps creates. If it is true that opportunity and chaos are the same word in Mandarin, Trump should stamp that word on a poster and sell it at his next scheduled event. For the Manhattan billionaire, manufactured chaos is just as profitable for his brand as Paris Hilton’s sex tape was for hers. …

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio’s brief appearances on TV during the rolling cable news coverage only made their own candidacies seem smaller under the glare of Donald’s Big Tent Show. …

Friday night’s farce was a made-for-television event with a handful of Trump supporters squaring off against protesters offended by Trump’s presence on their campus.

Unfortunately for his opponents, most of the protesters who appeared on camera during the night shouted profanities at cameras, intimidated others being interviewed by networks and played directly into the Republican front-runner’s hands. …

Trump wants to be the next president of the United States. But that will never happen unless the man who is about to lock down the GOP nomination drops his reality-show routine, starts working on uniting his party and gets serious about the daunting task before him. …

Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, hosts the MSNBC show “Morning Joe.”

Full story

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4/9/2016 Update

Defying expectations, Trump heads into primary (April 19, 2016) — Donald Trump heads into the New York primary with a strong lead despite conventional wisdom saying he wouldn’t make it to the convention. (Duration 7:59)

“This time it really is the end of Trump. Really.”
— E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post, April 3, 2016

“The voters have spoken. Never Trump.”
— Dana Milbank, Washington Post, April 6, 2016

“Donald Trump, losing ground.”
— New York Times front page, April 13, 2016

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8/23/2016 Update

Donald Trump Just Went Page Six on Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski

By Callum Borchers

August 22, 2016

Excerpts

Donald Trump escalated his feud with the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday, repeating a rumor straight off Page Six that Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are romantically involved. …

The back-and-forth illustrates once again just how badly the relationship between Trump and “Morning Joe” has deteriorated over the course of the election. Six months ago, in the early stages of the Republican primary, Scarborough and Brzezinski were widely viewed as being too cozy with the business executive, who was a frequent guest on their show. The co-hosts were quick to take Trump’s candidacy seriously …

Full story, video, and tweets

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Related reports on this site

Projecting the Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election: The Personal Electability Index (Feb. 29, 2016)

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Why Donald Trump Beats Jeb Bush: The Personal Electability Index (Aug. 23, 2015)

Photo credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images