Morning Joe ridicules GOP's last gasp to undermine impeachment vote: They 'have a losing fight on their hands’

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough mocked the last-gasp efforts by Republicans to defend President Donald Trump from his seemingly inevitable impeachment.

House Democrats plan to vote Thursday on rules for the public phase of the impeachment inquiry, and the "Morning Joe" host said their GOP counterparts were stuck playing a losing hand.

"It's so sad, actually," he said. "These poor Republicans, can you imagine if you had to defend Donald Trump?"

"They think they have to defend Donald Trump," Scarborough added, "and so they'll set up a straw man and then Nancy Pelosi will knock it down. They'll set up another, knock it (down). All they can do is argue process, process, process, process -- and even when Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats take those excuses away, they come up with others."

The president and his Republican allies have been complaining that the impeachment inquiry has been held behind closed doors, and insisted Democrats vote on it -- but now they're complaining that the House majority is voting on the rules for public hearings.

"They've been whining, oh, they've been whining," Scarborough said. "'We need a vote on this impeachment inquiry.' She finally gives them a vote, and they say, 'Well, it's taken them too long to give us a vote.' Now they're offended about that."

Scarborough said the Rules Committee is set up for the express purpose of enacting the rules for all House activities, as set by the majority, throughout congressional history.

"Same as it ever was, same as it ever was," he said. "You know the Republicans have a losing fight on their hands because all they can do is talk about process."