Joe Scarborough: Mika Brzezinski Is Pro-Life

In a new interview, Joe Scarborough spoke about his experience as "the lone conservative host on MSNBC" -- and also revealed some surprising information about his co-hosts' political views.

Speaking to Newsbusters, Scarborough defended his program against conservative criticism that the most of the show's pundits lean left.

The interviewer raised concerns about times when Scarborough takes a liberal view, arguing that it means "five people talking exclusively the Left position."

Scarborough responded that his criticism of the GOP is not to be interpreted as a move to the left. "That’s me being a conservative telling my side, 'Hey guys, let’s play to win, let’s be smart,'" he explained.

He also said that the rest of the roundtable could not simply be labeled as liberals. He called Willie Geist a "dead in the center" independent, and said that Mika Brzezinski takes some conservative positions. "Mika is liberal in some areas, she’s also conservative in areas that would surprise you on social issues," Scarborough said. "She’s pro-life and pro-guns."

UPDATE: For her part, Brzezinski told The Huffington Post, "I stay away -- my opinions on those two issues are admittedly convoluted. That's why I would never run for office."

MSNBC's Lineup:

• 6-9 AM: Morning Joe

• 9-10 AM: The Daily Rundown

• 10 AM-11 AM: Jansing And Co.

• 11 AM-12 AM: Thomas Roberts

• 12 PM-1 PM: Alex Wagner

• 1-2 PM: Andrea Mitchell

• 2-3 PM: NewsNation

• 3-4 PM: Martin Bashir

• 4-5 PM: Dylan Ratigan

• 5-6 PM: Hardball with Chris Matthews

• 6-7 PM: PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton

• 7-8 PM: Hardball

• 8-9 PM: The Ed Show

• 9-10 PM: Rachel Maddow

• 10-11 PM: The Last Word

• Weekends with Alex Witt

  7-8 AM (Sat.)/12-2 PM (Sun.): Weekends With Alex Witt

• Up with Chris Hayes

  8-10 AM (Sat./Sun.): Up with Chris Hayes

• Melissa Harris-Perry

  10 AM -12 PM (Sat./Sun.): Melissa Harris-Perry

Comments

[MzTexas]

02:02 PM on 11/22/2011

Being "pro-life" has nothing to do with being conservative. Most people are pro-life. The issue is actually pro-choice or anti-choice . . . and some conservatives are pro-choice.

Being "pro-gun" also has nothing to do with being conservative. I know people who are pro-gun who are card carrying liberal Democrats and I know people who are pro-gun control who are card carrying conservative Republicans (and some Blue Dogs).

Further, the majority of Americans are neither conservative or liberal, they are a blend of both . . . just like Mika.

[LiveTheSheenDream]

01:16 PM on 11/22/2011

Mika's when it comes to certain issues like the 2nd amendment and Roe v Wade Mika is highly intelligent and insightful.

- occupy fail

[ebanks84]

11:27 AM on 11/22/2011

Well, Scarborough had to call into his show this morning spewing his 2-cents worth of rhetoric blaming everything on Obama again. Of course it's Obama's fault that the super committee fell apart and didn't accomplish anything. How could he "not" feel that way? To him, if the weather is bad, it's Obama's fault.

Joe, nobody paid your little tirade any attention so you just wasted a few minutes of our time cutting into what the other guests were saying. Next time, don't bother to call thank you.

[RockyMissouri]

06:10 PM on 11/22/2011

Don't you think he'd be happier at FoxNews.......???

[notreallyabadguy]

11:22 AM on 11/22/2011

Republicans want government out of everything, but they want to regulate women's bodies. Pro LIFE, but once the child is born they care nothing about it. Today the GOP is talking about doing away with child labor laws, the department of education, cutting food stamps.... I think the "job creators" figured out a way to become even more profitable. Why ship jobs and goods overseas? If they undo the 20th century, end the social safety net and education, bust up the unions and repeal child labor laws and environmental protection... They can get themselves a workforce in THIS country that will be poor, uneducated and work for pennies a day. Pro-life is a propoganda tool (like gay marriage) to get the repubs to run to the polls to vote against themselves. They support a party that is actively destroying their community, their family, their lives.

[RockyMissouri]

06:11 PM on 11/22/2011

I can see now that we need regulations MORE THAN EVER....!

[Duppy]

10:31 PM on 11/21/2011

So what if she is pro life? Pro lifers are welcome in the Democratic party as long as they do not tell other people how to run their own lives.

[emncaity]

03:33 AM on 11/22/2011

Living example right 'tchere. Pro-life, Christian, but at least as progressive as anybody on this forum.

I mean, the fact that something is legal doesn't mean that the moral question is ended, or that anybody's required to do it only because it's legally permitted. Mostly it comes down to one side wanting the government to do the job where persuasion and science have failed.

Actually, as it relates to the political intent and effect, it's all just a ruse anyway. Republicans use this issue to make themselves appear more desirable to the religious right, when in fact they have no intention whatsoever of doing anything about abortion at the national level, or at least they haven't up to now. All those years of Reagan, and then several years with a Republican Congress, a Republican president, and a Republican Supreme Court, and nobody pushed a "make abortion illegal" bill through. As with all their other "moral" issues, they only dangle them in front of the religious right, and then once they're in office they don't do squat about them; they set about the real business of why they're there, which is to funnel more money and more power to the money-and-power elite. And yet, these red-state religionists can't get enough of it, can't be duped enough times to make them not vote for the GOP the next time.

[Europlan]

04:57 PM on 11/23/2011

Why is the Republican Party referred to as such? Early in the Fox Era, they began to refer to the Democratic party as the Democrat Party.It was a put down!!!! Please don' label the right wing extremist party of 2011 as Repubican Party. Republic Party will do. The Repubican Party of Eisenhower, Nixon (he founded the EPA among other things), Gerald Ford and even Ronald Reagan no longer exists.

[UnRed]

06:23 AM on 11/22/2011

Being Anti-Choice BY DEFINITION means telling others how to run their lives. And, yep, Pro-Life DOES mean Anti-Choice

[emncaity]

12:05 PM on 11/22/2011

Despite what everybody else here says, you mean?

Sorry. You don't get to define it for everybody else. I am pro-life in substance, but pro-choice as a voter because I recognize that intelligent people disagree, and also that just because something is illegal doesn't mean it is desirable, that the moral question has been answered or rendered irrelevant, or that it's compulsory to do whatever that illegal thing is. That is, nobody's being forced into abortions merely because it's legal, and nobody is saying that people should use legality as circumvention of all moral and ethical decisionmaking about abortion (or if they are saying that, they're wrong).

[Nicole J Wilkinson]

07:05 AM on 04/18/2012

I disagree. Pro-Life does not have to always mean someone is Anti-Choice. I personally am Pro-Life, AND Pro-Choice and I am a life-long Democrat.

I am not one of those crazy Pro-Lifer's that believe that life begins at the moment a sperm hits a egg....or even the more crazier ones that believe that life begins at the end of a woman's last period.

My reasoning behind my views is because when got pregnant and was abandoned by the father, I was homeless and alone. I had to do some inward soul searching; I had the options of either having an abortion, giving the child up for adoption, or keeping it....In the end I decided to keep the child and own up to my personal responsibility.

However; I had the choice, and I want ALL other women in America to also have that choice.

[deneufeldt]

10:17 PM on 11/21/2011

Joe ....What would you call Pat Buchanan and Micheal Steele Liberals?

[yumster]

09:48 PM on 11/21/2011

I am pro-life and pro choice and hate when I am told I can''t be both. It's none of your business.

[edfou5]

05:31 PM on 11/21/2011

Being pro-life and pro-choice are two ENTIRELY different issues.

Personally I dislike abortion intensely, having been partially responsible for two in my youth. Though I was not part of the decision, I was the male in the mix so I take 50% of the responsibility.

But I absolutely and unshakably defend a woman's right to choose. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is solely that of the man and woman who caused that pregnancy, ultimately the woman's, and arguably in some cases the doctor's... but under no circumstances is it anyone else's business.

The right wingers who have campaigned for so long against sex education and contraception are to a very great degree responsible for every abortion that takes place in this country. Their hands are not clean in this no matter what holy water they try to wash their hands in.

[TiffLO]

11:12 PM on 11/21/2011

I don't think I could have said this any better myself. I abhor the idea of abortions, and don't think of it as "just a woman's choice exclusively" - what about the man who was involved? BUT, I absolutely, positively, believe it is NOT a politician's job to remove it from the table. It is that man, woman, possibly even their parents' or rape counselors' and doctors' decisions.

And you are absolutely right. Every blow to sex ed is another abortion waiting to happen.

See, I tried, and I still couldn't say it as well as you! :)

[edfou5]

10:52 AM on 11/22/2011

Thanks for your kind words, and FANNED. You were most eloquent.

[RockyMissouri]

06:25 PM on 11/22/2011

Thank you for a most excellent comment..! For being a responsible person and being honest.... You give me hope for the next generations, and make me proud!

[omiT]

02:38 PM on 11/21/2011

Looking at US discussion from distance it is really creazy to see these terms like Pro- Life. If you used Anti-Abortion everybody would know what you would be talking about. Would not create same emotions I Guess.

[KristenfromMA]

02:04 PM on 11/21/2011

She can be anything she wants, as long as she doesn't try and force someone else to follow her beliefs.

[Char59]

01:55 PM on 11/21/2011

Depending on the situation, you can be both!

[Mademoiselle Godzilla]

12:00 PM on 11/21/2011

For the question of abortion, for now, it should be either:
Pro-Life/Pro-Choice, or, Pro-Life/Anti-Choice.

And Joe, you should learn, to just speak for yourself.

[LisaLisa1234]

09:57 AM on 11/21/2011

Pro-life and pro-gun seems to me to be an oxymoron. Guns are meant for one thing, and it isn't to preserve life.

[Peter007]

11:18 AM on 11/21/2011

Pro gun doesn't mean pro killing. It means keeping the right of self defense.
Pro life means defending the unborn babies.

[PaleMail]

11:45 AM on 11/21/2011

And once the baby exits the birth canal, it becomes fair game.

[Vimentin]

11:48 AM on 11/21/2011

Protect the unborn but not the living!

[WallyWong]

02:15 PM on 11/21/2011

Knock it off lisa, that's silly. I like guns, love them in fact. But I have no desire to kill anyone, or any living being for that matter.

[Mike Clark II]

09:51 AM on 11/21/2011

i still think shes pretty attractive. kinda rough but attractive.

[TruEngineHearing]

08:36 AM on 11/21/2011

I am pro-life and pro-choice. They are pieces of my spirit that co-exist quite comfortably, honestly and unchanged since my first breath. This confuses some people and gets others hopelessly bunched, and while that's unfortunate, that's their concern - my concern is that they think real hard before deciding to send the law to my daughter's door.

[laxfamily]

12:20 PM on 11/21/2011

I feel the same way. I personally am pro-life for my own body. I am also pro-choice for anyone else's body. The two co-exist quite well!

[EmpyPockets]

02:13 PM on 11/21/2011

I feel exactly like TruEngine Hearing & laxfamily. I am pro-life and pro-choice, everything is not always black or white, sometimes there is a lot of gray area.

[cam1002]

02:34 PM on 11/21/2011

Absolutely. Fortunately I have never been in the position to make that choice. My daughter was welcome from the beginning and abortion was never considered. That being said, I don't know what my choice would have been if my circumstances were different and I can't tell anyone else what choice they should make. Like you and TruEngineHearing above, the operative word here is CHOICE.