MSNBC's token Republican Joe Scarborough appeared on ABC's The View, Friday, to do what he does best: Trash conservatives. The Morning Joe co-host lectured the Republican Party to "stop listening to the most extreme people." Naturally, the bashing of his own party delighted the mostly liberal View panel. [See MP3 below [1].]
Elisabeth Hasselbeck seriously asked Scarborough if he would "consider being on the [2016] ticket." Scarborough didn't dismiss this as silly. He simply suggested such an undertaking would mean he'd "be home even less" than he is now.
When asked by liberal comic Mario Cantone what the solution is for the GOP, Scarborough seethed, "They've got to stop listening to the most extreme people in their party." A delighted Whoopi Goldberg marveled, "Say it one more time. One more time. One more time, Joe, please say it."
The former congressman added, "They've got to stop listening to the most extreme people in their party, whether it's on talk radio or cable news or the internet."
He insisted that the GOP has been about "subtraction" for far too long.
On Thursday's Morning Joe [2], Scarborough ridiculously insisted Republicans would have won if only they had nominated the liberal John Huntsman.
A transcript of the November 9 exchange can be found below:
11:30
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: [Speaking about Chris Christie's embrace of Obama.] The fact that the Republicans have a problem with them, if they actually punished him for this, that's exactly what's wrong with the party at this point. They still don't get it.
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: 2016, what are you thinking now? Everybody's talking about a new Republican Party has got to happen? Something's going to change. Would you maybe consider being on the ticket?
JOE SCARBOROUGH: No, because I would be home even less if that were the case. No, you know, I think Time magazine actually tomorrow is going to have a picture of a lot of people thinking of doing it. Jeb Bush came in. Marco Rubio is talking about it, obviously. On the Democratic side, of course, Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo. Some others It's going to be fascinating.
MARIO CANTONE: What do you think the Republican Party has to do, besides plugging themselves into an apple computer and updating, what do you think?
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. They've got to stop listening to the most extreme people in their party. [Applause]
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Say it one more time. One more time. One more time, Joe, please say it.
SCARBOROUGH: It's very simple. They've got to stop listening to the most extreme people in their party, whether it's on talk radio or cable news or the internet. One other thing, they've got to remember what Haley Barbour always said. Haley Barbour, not the most liberal guy in the world from Mississippi. He said it's about addition, it's not about subtraction. And we Republicans have been about subtraction for too long. You know who has the best message, in my opinion? A conservative.
GOLDBERG: Who?
SCARBOROUGH: The best message for Latino voters? I think conservatives do. Latinos are hard working people. They are conservative Catholics.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here [3] to follow him on Twitter.