MSNBC’s Morning Joe notices something ‘strange’ about the GOP ‘personality cult’

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough noticed something "strange" about the "personality cult" that has developed around former president Donald Trump in the Republican Party.

The GOP has lost control of the House, Senate and White House since Trump was first elected, but the "Morning Joe" host said the more they lose, the more they seem to love the twice-impeached one-term president.

"It really is strange," Scarborough said. "The more Republicans lose, the more of a personality cult Donald Trump seems to develop. You can look at his losses in '17 and '18 -- historic losses. I mean, Republicans losing like they've never lost before in the House of Representatives, just as far as a pure, pure vote totals, [and in] '19, they started losing governorships in the South and then in '20, they lost the big race, lost the race for their presidency, lost Georgia, lost the Senate, lost the House."

"Rational parties, parties that actually want to rule, parties that want their policies to change, instead of just these -- putting forth these hyper-gestures, they self-adjust and start electing candidates that can get elected," he added. "Donald Trump is not that guy, he's just not that guy, and we've seen time and again that he puts, in many cases, people in a difficult position to win general elections."

Scarborough fact-checked conspiracy theories offered by his friends and family to suggest Republicans are popular, actually, and the election was stolen from Trump.

"I just want to clear one thing up, because I've had some family members and friends ask me, 'Well, if Donald Trump was so bad and this wasn't rigged, why did the Republicans win and do so well in the House?'" Scarborough said. "Republicans overperformed expectations, based on the terrible polling that was out there. But it is important to remember that the House still remained Democratic and remained Democratic by, you know, I think they're plus-nine, plus-10. That's about the same. [Joe] Biden did about the same that Bill Clinton did in '92, did about the same, Bill Clinton did in '96, did much better than JFK, if you just look at the House side."

"Biden did much better than either party when you came to the Senate," Scarborough added. "He was a net plus-five in picking up Senate seats. He picked up five Senate seats in 2020, Donald Trump lost two in 2016, and you can go all the way back -- 40, 50 years -- and Biden did much better than most. So this idea -- and it's become urban legend that Democrats just got completely romped, because the polling was so bad and the expectations were so high. But this was not an historic anomaly. If Republicans were going, 'Hey, we did a great job! We only lost by 10 seats.' It's kind of the way losers think. You either win or you lose, and they lost."

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