The United States shouldn't "cower" and give into hackers threatening to attack theaters if they aired a movie that poked fun at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, talk show host Joe Scarborough said Friday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Sony Pictures Entertainment canceled the Christmas Day release of "The Interview" amid fears of attacks in retaliation for showing the movie, a comedy that centers on a plot to assassinate the North Korean leader.
Scarborough said canceling the movie could set a dangerous precedent if motion picture producers allowed other countries to dictate what's shown in American theaters. U.S. officials have identified North Korea as the
source that hacked into Sony's computers.
"ISIS levels a threat against 'American Sniper.' Are we going to cower in the corner for that? I'm not being John Wayne. This is a first step. This is a slippery slope. And, you don't take the first step down a slippery slope," Scarborough said Friday.
Scarborough, a former Florida Republican congressman, said he wouldn't be intimidated from showing the movie if he owned a theater, adding he would "wave 20 American flags" and dare anyone to "come at me."
"This can't be our new reality. We cannot let tyrannical governments, tyrannical weak governments, halfway across the world dictate what movies we're going to show on the Upper West Side," he said.
Scarborough questioned whether the hack attacks actually came from North Korea, a country he said "can't even keep their lights on at night."
"You look at the satellite pictures. South Korea at night has lights. North Korea does not. I'm serious. They can't keep a power grid running, let alone hack into Sony. They didn't do this," he said.
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