'It's insulting': MSNBC conservative scorches GOP 'hypocrisy' on blackface scandal

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Naval War College professor Tom Nichols torched Republicans for suddenly caring about racism after Virginia's Democratic governor became embroiled in a blackface scandal.

The "Morning Joe" host said Republicans have ignored or defended President Donald Trump's offenses, so it was infuriating for him to see conservatives going after Gov. Ralph Northam over a blackface photo from his medical school yearbook.

"The hypocrisy for Trump Republicans, even after looking at it and dealing with it and watch their hypocrisy over free trade, watch their hypocrisy over NATO and their former positions on holding Russia in check, watch their hypocrisy on big deficits, on the federal debt," Scarborough said. "Their hypocrisy on the issue of race after we go from the Muslim ban to the Hispanic doctor, to the Gold Star mother to Charlottesville --through all of the things Donald Trump has done, seriously, these Trump Republicans seriously are going to lecture anybody on being insensitive on the issue of race?"

The conservative Nichols said the GOP's attacks on Northam were insulting.

"Everybody's got a right to express an opinion, not everybody has a right to be taken seriously," Nichols said. "The thing that was striking about Republicans on the Northam thing is that they were issuing these kinds of statements as though nothing had ever happened up until yesterday, as though somehow we're all like the guy in that movie ('Memento') who can't form new memories. Every time we go to sleep, we wake up and we start all over again as if nothing had ever happened, and it's insulting."

"I mean, it goes beyond hypocrisy -- it's insulting," he added. "It says to the listener, you don't really have any firm memories, you can't draw connections from one day to the next, so we're just going to say this and jump on this bandwagon and you'll totally get it because you're so dumb you can't remember a thing."