'Nobody's panicking': Morning Joe and Mika bicker over Biden's chances going forward

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski bickered on the air over president Joe Biden's performance in the first presidential debate.

Scarborough opened Friday's episode of "Morning Joe" by openly questioning whether the president was up to the task of defeating Donald Trump and serving another four-year term, saying Biden "tragically did not rise to the occasion," but Brzezinski took exception to panelist Mike Barnicle's unvarnished criticism.

"You saw Donald Trump for fully an hour and a half lying about every single issue that impacts people's lives," Barnicle said. "Lying about abortion, lying lying about taxes, lying about the economy – just full-blown lies. Unfortunately, last night, President Biden let every fastball hanging out over the plate go by as a strike for Donald Trump. That's an indication he was just not up to it last night."

Brzezinski tried to tap the brakes, although she had already said Biden's performance was "terrible."

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"Okay, okay – hold on a second," Brzezinski said. "I agree with everything you said except for the last part of it. Everybody, calm down. I'll tell you why. I mean, it's fine to not spin what happened last night, and we're not going to. He had a terrible night."

Scarborough interrupted, saying that he and other panelists had remained calm.

"By the way, Mika, everyone is calm here," Scarborough said. "You're the only one raising your voice, everybody is calm here."

"But, again, it's the [position of] 'let's just immediately pull this, let's end this, let's find someone else,'" Brzezinski said.

Scarborough disagreed, saying that's not what Barnicle was advocating, but Brzezinski insisted there was no reason to panic over the debate.

"That attitude toward this is what I am saying slow down on," she said. "Because, again, there's no spinning it, but let's be balanced. Let's for once show some balance in a media world that is so shrill with imbalance that we've become used to this."

"First of all, we show balance," Scarborough countered. "Second, no one is panicking. I said these with questions Joe Biden and Democrats need to ask themselves. Mike said he missed one pitch down the middle after another and wasn't up to it last night, right, okay. Wasn't up to it last night. He said last night, so I will say, it's not panic. I mean, it's not being panicked. Understand what's at stake in this election, understand the window is closing very quickly. If Joe Biden is not up to doing this this, and if last night did not reveal that to you and other Democrats, then it needs to be revealed pretty soon."

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