“This president and a lot of Democrats think that they need to destroy a lot of these people in the Republican Party so they can win in 2014 and the president can get his agenda through his last two years,” host Joe Scarborough said.
The GOP hasn’t done itself any favors during the shutdown showdown, but Obama isn’t helping either, Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said.
“I think this president and a lot of Democrats think that they need to destroy a lot of these people in the Republican Party so they can win in 2014 and the president can get his agenda through his last two years,” Scarborough said on Thursday’s Morning Joe. “Please, we are talking about Washington D.C.—they are not saints on either side.”
Ten days into a shutdown, both parties are suffering in the polls.
Just 5% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, but Republicans are particularly suffering—a new Gallup poll found party favorability to be at the lowest point the survey had ever found.
Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had one word for the theory: “Delusional.”
But historian Niall Ferguson fears the same thing.
“What worries me slightly is the president may be convinced that this is the way he can destroy the Republican Party, by pining a default on a default recession on them and that may be what some Democratic strategists are thinking—we shouldn’t put this all on Ted Cruz,” he said on Thursday.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski pointed out that the Republicans don’t need any help in sinking their party.
“The Republican Party is doing a good job of that themselves,” she countered. “I don’t think anyone goes to bed thinking about destroying the Republican Party.”