Joe Scarborough says that the people who boo Donald Trump during debates are “idiots” because it plays “into [Trump’s] hands.”

Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Scarborough argued, “It was all the rich donors that were booing and I just thought all you’re doing is helping this guy that you want to beat.” (VIDEO: Fighting Back Audience Boos, Trump Says ‘Jeb Is So Wrong’)

Referring to Saturday’s Republican debate where a chorus of boos rained down after Trump and Jeb Bush got into it, allowing Trump to criticize the debate audience, Scarborough noted that ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd had it right when he said “that anybody that thinks booing Donald Trump if you’re the Republican establishment, anybody who thinks that hurts Donald Trump, has not been watching if the past year.”

Scarborough added, “I mean, that’s another thing that bothered me about the booing, I thought what idiots, they are playing into his hands,” Scarborough said. “Everybody knows it’s the rich donors that get the tickets.”

BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay added that Trump “played it brilliantly during the course of the debate. Kept referring to the people of the crowd that were booing, the lobbyists and funders that were booing. Clearly, he’s doing well at the moment.”

[dcquiz] Later, Scarborough said, “And this is the thing, and this is the biggest– I don’t want to say it this early. We’ll say this was the biggest scar that was torn open during this debate, the presumption that Republicans are going to line up behind George W. Bush… but the whole thing was set up, I mean, they played right into his hands. They made it look like a gladiator match.”

Kay interjected, “And [Trump] was the victim.”

“And so who’s going to win that,” Scarborough asked rhetorically. “Ben Carson? Jeb Bush? No. What Jeb Bush wants is silence so you can have a long, thoughtful policy debate. Instead, the people who thought they were helping Jeb Bush were just hurting him by turning it into a cage match.”

Follow Steve on Twitter and Facebook