Conservative MSNBC host Scarborough on Monday lamented that a recent assertion by Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin about “legitimate” rape showed that the Republican Party was continually “shooting themselves in the foot” by nominating the most extreme candidates.

During an interview with a local TV station over the weekend, Akin had been asked if his extreme anti-abortion views applied to cases where the woman had been raped.

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“It seems to me, first of all, what I understand from doctors is that’s really where—if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin said.

“You read it on the paper,” Scarborough said at the start of his MSNBC show on Monday. “Oh my God! And then you actually see his lips move and those words come out. Who thinks that way? What doctors [is he talking to]? Is it too late to throw mama from the train and have a new Republican primary?”

“It’s shocking, but Republicans keep doing this,” he added, linking Akin to other extreme tea party candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharon Angel in Nevada. “Republicans had Delaware two years ago and the decided to go with the person who was clearly going to lose. They had a shot at Nevada and they clearly went with the most unelectable candidate. They had been warned by reading press reports that Todd Akin was the only candidate that would give Claire McCaskill an opportunity of winning, and here we are.”

“This is a Republican Party that does not want to win the majority. They do not want to win the majority. They want to keep shooting themselves in the foot.”

Watch this video from MSNBC’s Morning Joe, broadcast Aug. 20, 2012.

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(h/t: The Huffington Post)

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