Mark Halperin interviewed MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on the latest edition of “Next Up with Mark Halperin.” Halperin asked Scarborough to explain his infamous monologue in March 20,24 where he defended then-President Joe Biden’s mental and physical acuity.

MARK HALPERIN, HOST: Yeah. Well, I, as I told you, and people, uh, may not realize you don’t pay much attention to social media anymore. You don’t pay much attention to criticism, but I told you for several months, I said, Joe Biden ever has become the symbol for the right of the media and MSNB on the, having, having so much Trump derangement syndrome that you’re claiming that a guy who’s clearly lost mental acuity, um, is the best Biden ever. Now I’ll say, I say to people go watch the state of the union address, talk to people who talk to Joe Biden. He had good days and bad days. You were with him on a good day and had conversations with him on a good day, on good days, on good days, but looking back at that, do you say, well, it was misleading to say best by never without caveating and say, except on the days when he’s not the best Biden. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, but, but, but I never, I never saw those days. HALPERIN: First of all, you did. You did. Cause you saw him address a dead Congresswoman and you saw him in South Carolina, the dead Congresswoman. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I can show you the RNC clip reels. There were plenty of days in public when he, when he was not the best Biden ever. SCARBOROUGH: And of course, he stumbled and he stumbled and he stumbled and bumbled around Mark. I mean, yeah, he, he certainly did. Uh, Donald Trump did other politicians did, but, but, but it, and it’s actually the same case as a lot of times when I’ve gone in and talked to Donald Trump, we’ve gone to Donald Trump and I’ve heard the media narrative around Donald Trump, and certainly I’ve been very critical of Donald Trump. And when I leave, I have a better understanding just like Jeffrey Goldberg did a couple of weeks ago, a better understanding of where Donald Trump is mentally, uh, if Donald Trump is, is losing it, like, you know, people have said, uh, through the years or not. And so again, am I going to look at a clip that’s gone viral and, and, and pay more attention to that than two and a half, three hours I had with a guy one-on-one, uh, going around the world? No, I’m just not going to. Are those, are, are, are some of the clips bad? Yeah, they certainly, they certainly are bad. I can understand why people would see that without the context and, and say, say that there was a problem with that, especially because I said, start rolling your tape right here, you know? It’s like, uh, but, but you know, when I look at that tape based on what I saw with Biden, based on the time that I spent with Biden, based on the hundreds of hours that I talked to people who talked to Biden and, and people that worked with Biden, um, and, and were with him day in and day out, good friends that I know, that I, that I trusted before Biden was president, that I trust now that Biden’s not president. I mean, put in the proper context, I’m just not going to freak out and melt down on, on, on one or two clips here or there. And again, he bumbled around and he stumbled around, but he has for quite some time. That didn’t seem to me to get in the way of, of Joe Biden being able to analyze the most important issues. And I’d certainly think he has, has a better grasp on it than, than probably the overwhelming majority of his critics or certainly did when I spoke with him. Um, but again, the, the, the, the question is, um, you know, who is somebody else running the government for him? Is he incapable of running meetings? I’ve never talked, I’ve never talked to anybody that has said Joe Biden’s not capable of running meetings. The complaint that I’ve heard, not only from, and I hope people are still listening to me because it is important. Um, the only complaints I’ve heard about Biden internally was that he was angry. He would often get angry and that it was basically his way or the highway. He would listen to other people, but the Afghanistan issue is a perfect example. We had everybody from Mark Milley, every general, every, everybody saying, don’t get out of Afghanistan. Uh, but you know, it was, I think at times it would have been good for him to, to yield a little bit more to some of his advisors than he did. That’s one thing. The second thing is, again, this is multi-layered, you know, I talked to, I talked to a good friend that I had in, in the French delegation when they had tough negotiations, uh, I think it was, uh, right after the state dinner, the French state dinner before the state dinner. Um, and they, they, they said they were all surprised. They brought up five or six points. And not only was Biden, um, on top of his game, um, he was, they thought a bit aggressive.

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