MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough said Thursday that Democrats should have been “slaughtered” in the midterm elections.
Scarborough, who represented Florida’s First Congressional District in Congress from 1995 until 2001, told former Obama staffer Jim Messina that the midterm elections were expected to be a doomsday for Democrats due to record-high inflation and crime rates, yet they keep catering to the “most extreme” in their party.
“This simple math, Jim Messina. You’ve run elections, I’ve run in a few small elections on the congressional side. We all had our extremists, right? We all had people in the crowds where you’re like, ‘Okay, they’re over there. You leave [through] that door.’ They’re saying crazy things and I’m not gonna get you on camera with them saying crazy things. So, there are extremists. There have been extremists on both sides. The important thing is, you stay away and you try to mainstream. You try to mainstream your message.”
“Like the Democrats, I think we both agree, should’ve gotten slaughtered this past year,” he continued. “They should’ve been wiped out because of inflation, because of crime concerns, the chaos at the southern border. That may not mean anything to some people, but that means a hell of a lot to people in Arizona, it means a hell of a lot to people in other swing districts.”
He added that Democrats are catering to the party’s progressive wing and ignoring a large portion of their voters who are concerned with the border crisis and rising crime rates.
Prominent Democrats, such as Vice President Kamala Harris and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, have asserted that the U.S.-Mexico border is “secure,” despite the influx of fentanyl and migrant apprehension numbers exceeding 2.3 million in the 2022 fiscal year. (RELATED: Scarborough Tears Into Gov. Hochul, Progressives Over New York Crime Surge)
Scarborough has repeatedly called out left-wing district attorneys for ignoring the crime surge in major cities throughout the U.S. In San Francisco, now-former district attorney Chesa Boudin was recalled after the city witnessed an uptick in homelessness, robberies and homicides. A similar effort failed to recall Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón.
Crime rates in Philadelphia and New York City also drastically surged prior to the midterm elections. New York witnessed a nearly 6% rise in overall crime as of October, including a 15% rise in rape and a 19% in grand larceny, according to the New York Police Department.
“When you have woke DAs in Philadelphia basically saying they don’t have a crime problem, when you have cops quitting left and right in Philadelphia … they’re not going to risk their lives so they can arrest people who are going to be out on the street the next day,” Scarborough said during an Oct. 21 “Morning Joe” episode. “And then you have Progressives telling people in Philadelphia, telling these people, ‘Oh, you’re wrong, don’t believe your lying eyes’ … There’s something wrong with you for being afraid to go to work, there’s something wrong with you for being afraid to go home.”