'Mr. Trump is debasing his office': The famously conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board slammed the president for pushing a Joe Scarborough murder conspiracy theory
by Ashley Collman- The Wall Street Journal's editorial board criticized President Donald Trump on Tuesday for spreading a conspiracy theory involving the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough.
- In recent weeks, Trump has been trying to connect Scarborough to the 2001 death of one of his congressional aides, which has officially been labeled an accident.
- The Journal's editorial board, which is known to lean conservative, called Trump's comments "nasty" and "ugly even for him."
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The Wall Street Journal's editorial board has come out against President Donald Trump for pushing a conspiracy theory about the MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough.
In response to Scarborough's criticism of Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak in recent weeks, Trump has revived questions about whether the "Morning Joe" cohost was involved in the 2001 death of one of his congressional aides.
Lori Klausutis' death was officially labeled an accident, and Scarborough wasn't even in the same state when she died.
The coroner said Klausutis died after collapsing from an undiagnosed heart condition and hitting her head in the fall, according to a fact-check by the Associated Press.
Yet Trump in recent days has tried to connect Scarborough to the death.
"So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & die? I would think there is a lot more to this story than that? An affair?" Trump tweeted on Sunday.
On Tuesday, he brought up the conspiracy theory yet again, claiming that mystery had shrouded Klausutis' death for years.
"The opening of a Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough was not a Donald Trump original thought, this has been going on for years, long before I joined the chorus," the president tweeted.
"In 2016 when Joe & his wacky future ex-wife, Mika, would endlessly interview me, I would always be thinking about whether or not Joe could have done such a horrible thing? Maybe or maybe not, but I find Joe to be a total Nut Job, and I knew him well, far better than most. So many unanswered & obvious questions, but I won't bring them up now! Law enforcement eventually will?"
'Ugly even for him'
The Journal's editorial board publicly condemned Trump for pushing the conspiracy theory in an editorial Tuesday, saying his comments about Scarborough were "nasty stuff" and "ugly even for him."
"Mr. Trump always hits back at critics, and Mr. Scarborough has called the President mentally ill, among other things. But suggesting that the talk-show host is implicated in the woman's death isn't political hardball. It's a smear," the board wrote.
The editorial board added that it didn't expect Trump to stop his tirade against Scarborough but wanted to make it clear that "Mr. Trump is debasing his office" and "hurting the country in doing so."
The Journal's editorial board has historically leaned conservative.
TJ Klausutis, the widower of Scarborough's aide, wrote a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey asking the company to delete the president's tweets suggesting that Scarborough was implicated in the 2001 death.
Trump doubled down on the debunked rumor he had been pushing, claiming TJ Klausutis wanted to "get to the bottom" of it.
Editors note: A previous version of this article stated that the WSJ's editorial board endorsed Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. It was a member of the board who supported Clinton.