Former GOP congressman and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told Stephen Colbert on Tuesday that he’s leaving the Republican party to become an independent.
“I can never vote for anybody in my party that said they were going to ban people because of the God they worship,” Scarborough said, referencing President Trump’s travel ban aimed at six Muslim-majority countries. “It was disturbing through the entire campaign. In February, when he talked about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, you didn’t have Republicans coming out saying, ‘I can never support Donald Trump because he’s racist.’”
Scarborough, who represented Florida’s first district in Congress from 1994 to 2001, continued: “You have to ask yourself, what in fact is the Republican party willing to do? How far are they willing to go? How much of this country and their values are they willing to sell out?”
Scarborough’s announcement comes weeks after the president tweeted shockingly personal insults at him and Mika Brzezinski, his fiancee and Morning Joe co-host, and right off the heels of the latest media firestorm for the administration.
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017
…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017
“I am a Republican, but I’m not going to be a Republican anymore,” Scarborough told Colbert. “I’ve got to become an independent.”
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