Maddow mocks the idea of Limbaugh hosting a GOP debate: 'Seem like a plan?'

A somewhat amused Rachel Maddow noted on Friday that the GOP's move to ban CNN and NBC from its future presidential primary debates ran counter to its own advice from earlier this year to be more inclusive and to "stop listening to itself."

"That was the plan for the Republican party back in March," Maddow said before bursting into a grin. "Now the plan is to have the Republican presidential candidates' debates in the next cycle moderated by Rush Limbaugh. Or maybe Sean Hannity. Or somebody else from talk radio."

Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus, she pointed out, got a standing ovation and a unanimous vote for his plan to exclude the two networks because of their upcoming biographical projects centering on former Secretary of State and prospective Democratic contender Hillary Clinton, even though Fox Television would actually be producing one of them, an argument at which she scoffed.

"You've gotta get rid of mainstream news associations having anything to do with Republican candidates," she argued, before showing footage of Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Bryan Fischer. "Because instead, it's going to be right-wing talk radio now. They'll do the vetting, and that is how America will learn what the Republican party has to offer. These guys. Seem like a plan?"

Watch Maddow examine the deepening drive for ideological purity within the GOP, aired Friday on MSNBC, below.

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