MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough condemned Donald Trump’s latest “fascist” remarks, and he said the former president’s rhetoric had grown so alarming that even Republican senators were pushing back.

The twice-impeached one-term president suggested he would pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists if he returned to the White House, and stated flatly that he had wanted former vice president Mike Pence to overturn his election loss that day, and the “Morning Joe” host said there was no doubt that Trump was an authoritarian.

“You have seen the rise of authoritarianism, and it is certainly what we all understand Donald Trump has been wanting to do for quite some time,” Scarborough said. “If you can’t win an election, steal an election, overturn an election — that’s what he was saying, talking about Mike Pence. Yeah, he actually said some things — we haven’t been playing his rallies of late, but he actually said some things that were so inflammatory that you had Republicans coming out and actually criticizing him and saying, ‘Hey, no, no, let’s take a step back, we didn’t want to overturn the election, we were just talking about having some of the votes recounted.'”

“But, again, Donald Trump is now speaking in shorthand, now saying what he really means,” Scarborough added. “He wanted a free and fair election overturned. Why? Because he didn’t win, and, again, his words have consequences. This new sort of almost fascist — I don’t know, do you say almost fascist after Jan. 6 or do you say fascist? His fascist instinct to use violence to overturn government institutions, we’re actually seeing it at Trump events where you have people asking, when do we start using guns? You are seeing it at forums. This past weekend, I believe it was, you had a Michigan Senate candidate telling people to bring guns to polling places. If they didn’t win, they needed to be locked and loaded. Basically saying, if we can’t win at the ballot box we are going to win by killing people.”

READ: This authoritarianism expert warned us fascism was coming — now he says we can survive it

Last month during a GOP fundraiser held at Mar-a-Lago Donald Trump, the former president, gleefully recounted an event he says took place when he met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

“He’s not big on press coming in. I don’t think he’d ever done it before,” Trump said, as first reported by The Uprising’s Hunter Walker (video, via Women for Trump, below).

“And the press came in and they were rough, not so much with him — even not so much with me — but the way they poured in, physically they tried to push guards down. And fortunately, these were North Korea guards. They didn’t get pushed down.”

“It was a rough kind of a day for the press,” Trump noted.

Walker adds there is “a chance Trump may have said ‘unfortunately,’ but the overall intent of the remark — mocking tough physical treatment of the press by the authoritarian Kim’s guards — is clear. After telling the tale, Trump began to chuckle and the audience laughed along with him.”

The Washington Post reported at the time of the meeting, June of 2019, that then-press secretary Stephanie Grisham was “bruised…in a scuffle between North Korean security and members of the U.S. press pool covering President Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.”

The Secret Service was forced to intervene “as North Korean guards pushed and shoved American reporters,” The Post added.

Trump spent a good portion of his time campaigning from 2015 through 2021 attacking the press, even calling out some reporters by name. One famous story involves NBC News/MSNBC reporter Katy Tur, who required Secret Service armed escorts out of a Trump rally in December of 2015 after she was personally, verbally attacked by Trump.

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Kayleigh McEnany on Tuesday, in her role this afternoon as White House press secretary, says President Donald Trump continues to pursue “ongoing litigation” to retain power and has until January 20 to continue those actions.

President-elect Joe Biden won the Electoral College in a 306-232 vote, and beat Donald Trump by more than 7 million votes in the popular vote.

McEnany said Monday’s Electoral College vote was merely “one step in the constitutional process leading up to the January 20th date in the Constitution.”

Her statements are false. The Electoral College has completed its constitutional duties and there is no legal path for overturning its vote.

Despite her being a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, a role experts say is at minimum the appearance of an ethical conflict, she refused to answer more questions and referred reporters to the campaign.

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.@PressSec doesn’t say if @realDonaldTrump accepts #ElectionResults2020, telling @CBSNews‘ @benstracy the #ElectoralCollege‘s certification “was one step in the constitutional process leading up to the January 20th date in the constitution” and that “litigation is ongoing” pic.twitter.com/Q1URk1n6so

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) December 15, 2020