“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough called out Republican California Congressman Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday for remaining silent about former president Donald Trump’s meeting with Kanye “Ye” West and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
The segment included a montage of various responses from Senate Republicans reacting to news of Trump’s dinner with the pair.
Sen. Jodi Ernst called the meeting “ridiculous,” while Sen. Rick Scott said there is “no room” in the Republican Party for white supremacists or antisemitism. Sen. Mitt Romney was more critical of Trump, calling the meeting “disgusting” and adding that it is “clear that there is no bottom to the degree to which President Trump will degrade himself and the nation.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham called the meeting “bad” but said he “doesn’t think it will matter” in terms of Trump’s political future.
“What’s interesting is that we are hearing Republican Senators being critical of Donald Trump. It sort of feeds into what we have been saying here for quite some time, the three parties, there’s the Democratic party, the Republican senate party and there’s the Republican House party,” Scarborough said. “Interesting, not surprising, unfortunately, and sad and pathetic, we haven’t heard Kevin McCarthy, we haven’t heard other leaders of the House Republicans come out and criticize Donald Trump.”
Scarborough argued that McCarthy hasn’t spoken out because he “thinks his support depends on having white nationalists and supporters of neo-Nazis voting for him for speaker of the House.”
BBC News correspondent Katty Kay warned McCarthy’s job as House Speaker will be “a nightmare” and “almost impossible to do” if he has to be “continuously in hook” with “Trumpian-wing” lawmakers such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan.
“He may rethink all those years of craving that job. I don’t quite see what’s in it for him, other than pure ambition,” she added. “Clearly, he knows which way the votes lie and the votes don’t lie within the moderates of the party.”
Watch the full “Morning Joe” segment in the video above.