The Republican Party is stuck in the past, and will lose again in 2024 if they don’t ditch former president Donald Trump, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said Tuesday.
“They’re acting like this was any other year,” Scarborough said of the Republican establishment as the “Morning Joe” panel discussed a report in which former House speaker Paul Ryan dismissed Trump’s chances of getting the Republican nomination for president in 2024.
“They’re acting like this is 2012! Like this is 2004!”
He noted that behind the scenes, even those GOP leaders who don’t support Trump say they will vote for him over President Joe Biden next year because the current president is a “socialist,” Scarborough scoffed.
The host laced into Trump, noting that on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the 45th president called people who didn’t support him in 2020 “villains” and told the crowd, “I am your retribution!”
“That’s not stirring up violence. He’s already stirred up violence on January 6,” Scarborough ranted. “There’s just been one fascist talking point after another fascist talking point, through the years. This is fascism. You can’t round off the curves and try to make it look pretty! It ain’t gonna look pretty!”
Scarborough was particularly ticked about Trump’s “retribution” claim.
“I am your retribution? I am your retribution?” he railed “I got a question: Is Trump their retribution for losing in ’22? Or ’21? Is he their retribution for losing in’ 20, or ’19 or ’18?”
“Seriously, this is like a guy who you think is gonna go up and dunk the basketball, shatter the backboard, he stumbles, and he can’t even make a layup?” Scarborough continued. “‘Just call me retribution.’ No! You’re a loser! You keep losing elections.”
Scarborough, a one-time Republican congressman, added that the problem is that Trump, from the start of his political career, hasn’t understood that politics “is a game of addition.”
“I tried to talk to people in his cabinet, said listen, this is simple,” Scarborough recalled, “you want more people on your side. You don’t want to go attacking everybody and turning them off. You guys need to be more inclusive, you need to open up, you need to try to get 50% plus one.”
“I don’t say this because it’s the right thing to do, even though it is,” he added. “I say this because they’re gonna lose again.”
“Politics is a game of addition,” the host concluded, “and Trump is still in the business of subtracting, every single day.”
Watch the full “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.