On Friday's edition of 'Morning Joe,' host Joe Scarborough said media people are beginning to speculate about the possibility that the Trump White House itself leaked the transcripts of President Trump's conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia. He suggested that because the media jumped on them so fast, even though the leak of a high level conversation between world leaders seems unseemly, perhaps Trump himself planned it to make the media look bad.





JOE SCARBOROUGH: Here's the operating theory:



That we heard people talk about last night... some might say... The fact that you have this extraordinary leak that is damaging, supposedly to the White House, and damaging to our allies, but realy is damaging to the press. Because everyone came out on TV and said this was a shock.



Did the Trump administration do a Nunes?



...



I don't know it is starting to smell a little but, it could be like what happened with Nunes, where it was a setup.



...



Everyone agreed on Capitol Hill and the media that this was extraordinary, this was a leak, unprecedented, damaging, and yet [the WP got no pushback from the WH]...



MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Unless you wanted it to happen. Personally, I think this whole leak thing where everyone was played, and this was actually orchestrated by the White House. This is what Trump is good at. To be Nunes'd.







CNN's Brian Stelter offered counter speculation: CNN's Brian Stelter: White House Leakers Could Be "Trying To Blow The Whistle"



(Video via Mark Finkelstein)