Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough trashed Vice President JD Vance as “stupid” for dismissing former President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal would merely be a “12-hour news story” today.

Opening the show on MS NOW on Friday morning the hosts played back the vice president’s remarks, made during an appearance Thursday at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in California to promote his new book.

“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be a 12-hour news story,” Vance said, arguing the Watergate scandal would barely register in the current political and media landscape.

“The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy,” he added, claiming that the “deep state took down Richard Nixon.”

Scarborough cutting in at the top of the show immediately slapped down the remarks as “ahistorical” and “stupid.”

“Listen, I know he didn’t go to his southern state school like me but what he’s saying is ahistoric and stupid,” the host began.

He continued: “You can say a lot of things about Richard Nixon from ‘46 through ‘73. You can talk about the opening of China. You can talk about the creation of the EPA. You can talk about detente with Russia. You can talk about how we use China to counterbalance Russia, where that triangulation you can talk about just, again, how he was one of the more significant political figures of his time.”

“But to say that, that is defining deviancy down,” he warned, “and that’s trying to say, ‘Listen, what we’re doing now, you know, it’s not bad, just like, Nixon and Watergate.’”

He added: “Let’s just be really clear here that the vice president of the United States just said that the deep state went after Nixon. No! Richard Nixon used the deep state to go after political enemies, just like, well, your administration, Mr. Vice President – the FBI, the CIA. the DOJ – it sounds vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?

“They not only broke into the DNC, they broke into doctor’s offices, into psychiatrists offices, trying to get people’s most private, intimate records. They had an enemies list. They tapped lines,” Scarborough said, rolling back over the history. “This is what JD Vance says is normal!”

Mocking the vice president’s “deep state” comment again as “stupid” the host asked: “Where did you go to school, man? Where did you go to school? Like, did you really get a degree from Yale?”

Watch above via MS NOW.

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