The 2016 Blast The latest POLITICO scoops and coverage of the 2016 elections. Email Sign Up

Tweets from https://twitter.com/politico/lists/team-politico



The “Morning Joe” co-host and former GOP lawmaker acknowledged how different the parties’ debates have been. Scarborough: GOP performs on a ‘fifth-grade level’

The Republican Party has “shattered its brand,” Joe Scarborough said Thursday.

A day after Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders respectfully contrasted their records and policy differences in Wednesday night’s debate, the “Morning Joe” co-host and former GOP lawmaker acknowledged how different the parties’ debates have been.

“Can we just stop for one minute and talk about how much the Republican Party has shattered its brand by comparing Democratic debates,” Scarborough asked, noting that the Democratic contests have been heavily focused on policy issues.

Republican debates, however, “focus on the size of hands, personal insults, the size of — suggestions about the size of body parts that we won’t even mention on this morning news show,” he added, alluding to a recent exchange between GOP front-runner Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. “The contrast is absolutely staggering, and as a Republican, I’ve got to tell you it’s extraordinarily depressing.”

Scarborough questioned how the party can be so dominant at the local and state levels — most states have Republican legislatures, 31 states have Republican governors, and the House and Senate have GOP majorities — but perform “on a fifth-grade level” nationally.

But it’s not just this cycle, Scarborough said. Republicans “constantly send one clown after another clown after another clown up on the national stage and tarnishes the Republican brand in the way that they have for years now,” he said. “It remains one of the great mysteries of this Republican Party that is, again, dominant on every level and yet humiliates themselves every four years in debates on the national stage.”

Co-host Mika Brzezinski agreed with Scarborough, declaring it Judgment Day for the GOP. “The party’s gonna have to explode and start all over again or figure itself out. If you look at where are now, it is not the Republican Party. There's a Democrat that's the front-runner,” she said, referring to Trump. “I mean, come on.”

Scarborough again recalled the infamous Rubio-Trump exchange, saying that as he watched it, he thought: “This is a major party? This is what the debates have devolved to?”

“And I’m sorry, 9-9-9 wasn’t that much higher rhetoric four years ago,” he said, invoking the tax plan of 2012 Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. “It’s been a clown show for years.”

Ohio Gov. John Kasich is the only governor remaining in the once-crowded field of GOP candidates that also included Govs. Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker and former Govs. Rick Perry, George Pataki, Mike Huckabee, Jim Gilmore and Jeb Bush.

“For some reason those extraordinarily talented governors and legislators do not rise to the level in the Republican primary process,” Scarborough said. “And we as a party, I’m talking about my party, need to figure out why the party that dominates the nation from coast to coast puts up clowns — reality-show stars, and I’m not talking just about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Sarah Palin types, Michele Bachmann types, Herman Cain types that run around yelling 9-9-9 every four years.”

Scarborough said people get angry at him every presidential cycle for “criticizing the clowns that go on the debate stages, while the Republicans that run this country, from governor’s mansions and from state legislatures, just never seem to break through in this primary process. Something is deeply wrong with the way Republicans select their nominee every four years.”