MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough thinks House Speaker Paul Ryan, who will arrive in Cleveland this July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, has a better chance of becoming the GOP presidential nominee than Ted Cruz.
“Ted Cruz will never be the nominee,” the former Florida congressman said matter-of-factly on his program Wednesday morning.
“You don’t think he’s the second most likely nominee?” a panelist responded.
“No. Not even close,” Scarborough shot back.
The same panelist then asked Scarborough “who’s more likely to be the nominee?”
“You know what? Paul Ryan,” he responded. “You name the list. [Cruz] right now – the guy is loathed. He is loathed in DC in a way that Donald Trump is not loathed.”
Scarborough continued, “I know a lot of the establishment hates Donald Trump, but Ted Cruz is the devil that they know and he’s not going to win the nomination.”
“Maybe Ted Cruz is the most wonderful human being in the world when he’s in the backyard throwing a baseball with his next-door neighbors and barbecuing, but he is not though on TV a likable guy,” he added.
“He’s not gong to do it,” the MSNBC anchor said of Cruz securing the nomination. “So it’s going to be Donald Trump or somebody else.”
Scarborough’s comments come on the heels of Cruz’s huge victory Tuesday night in the Wisconsin primary. The Texas senator carried nearly 50 percent of the vote and billed his victory as a pivotal moment in the Republican battle for the nomination.
“Tonight is a turning point. It is a rallying cry,” Cruz declared at a primary night watch party in Milwaukee.
The first-term senator now trails Trump by 226 delegates in the race to reach the 1,237 needed to secure the nomination.
