Steve Schmidt: Republican Establishment Suffering From "Affluenza," They "Just Don't Get It"

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt tells Morning Joe the Republican establishment in Washington, D.C. have a case of "affluenza" when it comes to taking on Donald Trump and "just don't get it." Schmidt on Thursday's broadcast of MSNBC's Morning Joe:





STEVE SCHMIDT: Think about the nitwit kid in Texas who was let off of his murderous drunk driving charges with the affluenza defense. The Republican establishment in Washington, D.C. has a case of affluenza. You have six of the ten wealthiest counties in the country surround Washington, D.C. You have a real estate market that took a narrow downturn but rebounded very quickly. You have a city that's insulated from economic distress, it's recession-proof to some degree.



So this Republican establishment, the consulting class in Washington, D.C., these are not living wage jobs. And at the end of the day, I think they totally miss the psychic impact, the economic impact of the great recession, of the economic collapse. It was such a seismic event in the modern history of the country that even eight years later it's the defining issue of the 2016 campaign as it was the defining issue of the 2008 fall campaign. And they just don't get it.



They don't understand the impact for blue-collar wage workers in this country over a 20 year basis and you're seeing this now all play out in this general election. And this Republican establishment in Washington, D.C., until the middle of the fall, legitimately if you talk to people in Washington they say, 'Well, no, Jeb Bush will win, he's the Republican front-runner,' until very, very late in the process. Then it was Marco Rubio.



Now there's going to be a brokered convention and it will upend the results of the actual voting and will have Paul Ryan be the nominee. So all this continues to play out over an almost hourly basis by a very disconnected and decapitated now Republican establishment in Washington, D.C.