MSNBC host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough recommended Friday that any GOP House or Senate candidates up for reelection should distance themselves entirely from the party’s presidential nominee.
Scarborough said Friday on “Morning Joe” that Donald Trump has become too toxic for the GOP’s congressional candidates this year.
“The center cannot hold when you have the speaker of the House [Paul Ryan] calling the Republican nominee a racist but saying he’s still endorsing the nominee,” he said. “It is so bizarre on its face that you have people chuckling in the background.”
Scarborough referenced the often tense relationship Ryan has had with Trump on foreign and domestic policy issues as well as the tone of the celebrity businessman’s campaign.
“And thank you Republican leaders in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “That’s who you’re endorsing. … You’ve got to cut him loose.”
Throughout the primary, Scarborough was among the most sympathetic voices in the news media for Trump. He was often critical of Republican leaders and others in the media who he said were “arrogant” and ignorant of Trump’s wide appeal to working class voters. A February column in Rolling Stone referred to Scarborough and his co-host Mika Brzezinski as Trump’s “lapdogs.”
After winning the nomination, however, media scrutiny of Trump’s campaign has intensified and the candidate has faced a new controversy nearly each week since then.
Current national polls still show him effectively tied with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but some other polls that focus on swing states show Clinton with a significant lead.
