Ex-MSNBC host: ‘The real problem’ is ‘half

Donny Deutsch trashed “half the country” Thursday, saying Republican voters have pushed the GOP in a bad direction.

MSNBC’s Jonathan Lemire asked whether GOP leadership meeting with Trump, despite criticizing him in the past, is “emblematic of the rot of the GOP right now.”

“Eight years we’ve been going through this dance with various Republicans. It verges from spinelessness to lack of character to complete duplicity to fraud,” journalist Mike Barnicle said, arguing the GOP as he knew it is gone. “One political party, major political party gone, diminished, means nothing to a lot of people today. I don’t know how you re-brand that.”

By contrast, Deutsch argued that voters are the ones responsible.

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“The real problem is not the party itself, it’s the voters who are subscribing to the party – 74 million of them last time around,” Deutsch said. “This time, Trump is ahead in the polls, not by a lot.”

“The real question and the thing that’s the most troubling, and I know a lot of these Trump voters, is the party speaks for itself. They’re transparent. We see it. Other than Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, I don’t think — and now you saw Paul Ryan — I don’t think there is a Republican that has spoken outside of or against ‘fearless leader,’” he said, appearing to refer to Trump with sarcasm.

Deutsch went on to say that the fact that the voters know exactly what they’re getting with the Trump and Republican Party and yet still half support them makes him lose sleep at night.

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“So what is it about, at this point, half the country that says, ‘That’s my party, I’ll vote for that, that works for me?’ That’s the troubling part. It’s beyond the party. It’s the voters that are subscribing to it. That keeps me up at night,” he added.