During President Obama’s wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo Friday, the president responded to a question about the “lack of action in Washington” with the claim that when it comes to shutting down the government to kill ObamaCare, his “Republican friends” tell him “privately” that they agree with him but are afraid of Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party:

Nobody thinks [a shutdown’s] good for the middle class. So the question is ultimately, if you are putting the American people first, if you are prioritizing them, then this shouldn’t be that difficult. And I’ve made this argument to my Republican friends privately, and, by the way, sometimes they say to me privately, “I agree with you, but I’m worried about a primary from, you know, somebody in the Tea Party back in my district,” or, “I’m worried about what Rush Limbaugh is going to say about me on the radio. And so you got to understand, I’m — it’s really difficult.”

Just ten days ago, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said something remarkably similar during a “Morning Joe” discussion about same sex marriage — that since 2006, “Republican leaders have said one thing in green rooms, another thing on TV and another thing on talk radio.”

“Reince Priebus, when I got engaged, congratulated me at the White House correspondents weekend,” [MSNBC anchor Thomas] Roberts said. And last year, the Republican National Committee’s communications director, “Sean Spicer, congratulated me on getting married to my husband. It’s odd because then they’ll go out and drum beat against marriage equality.”

“Since 2006,” Scarborough said, “Republican leaders have said one thing in green rooms, another thing on TV and another thing on talk radio.”

Scarborough called out GOP leaders for hurting the party. “Guts, they don’t have guts to speak out against extremists. Mitt Romney never had the guts to speak out against the most extreme elements in his party and he lost, in part because he followed extremists down a rabbit hole.”

Obviously, someone is lying. Either leftists like Obama and Scarborough are engaging in a coordinated political tactic to sew division in the Republican ranks, or some in the GOP are not who they say they are.

Of course, both could be true.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC