Axelrod: Those ‘Marginal’ GOPers Pushing Gov’t Shutdown Are 2016 Candidates

On Morning Joe Wednesday morning, former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod called the threat from certain members of the GOP to shut down the government over Obamacare “pandering,” led entirely by prominent Republican figures eyeing a 2016 run rather than any substantive policy victory.

Host Joe Scarborough, who’s been adamantly criticizing this move for several weeks now, seized on Axelrod’s comment that most Republicans were opposed to the shut down. “I’m glad you are making that point,” Scarborough said. “These people are actually marginalizing themselves more every single day.”

Axelrod agreed, but doubted that they were as marginal as Scarborough portrayed them.

“They are also pandering to a constituency,” Axelrod said. “Look who is leading the fight: Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Rubio, people who want to run for president. They want to command that activist, strident right wing base in the Republican Party. This is red meat for that constituency.”

“This isn’t about the good of the country,” Axelrod added. “This isn’t about advancing some public policy goal. This is about pandering to the base to try to get some advantage in 2016.”

Watch the full clip below, via MSNBC:

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Image via MSNBC

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