‘You Want this Job Too Much… It Makes You Weak!’ Joe Scarborough Demands Kevin McCarthy Tell Holdouts ‘Go to Hell!’

Joe Scarborough is mad as hell and can’t take it anymore.  The object of his animus? Not just Rep. Kevin McCarthy, but the wannabe Speaker’s continued negotiating against himself.

It’s a signature segment that belongs in the eventual Morning Joe Hall of Fame: there was the host pounding on the studio desk for effect, increased volume, pointing at the camera, and even a direct appeal to his subject, Rep. McCarthy. There was even a mid-harangue debate as to whether Scarborough’s caricature voice was Krusty the Clown (as co-host Mika Brzezinksi assessed), when in fact it was really more of a Chief Wiggum to these ears.

At any rate, Scarborough has been a frequent critic of McCarthy, but in this instance, appeared to be giving the California Republican at the center of the disasterclass House Speaker vote some well need advice, which can be summed up as “don’t negotiate against yourself.”

“This negotiating against yourself, this shuttle diplomacy when you stay up all night, and then they come out and talk to the press and tell you to go to hell,” Scarborough said. “Just stop.”

“Kevin, this is for you,” he added. “You want this job too much. You’ve wanted this job too much for too long. It makes you weak.” He then mentioned the Iran nuclear deal as an example of Democrats making a similar negotiating mistake to maintain his moderate bona fides before returning to McCarthy, saying:

“You want this Speakership too much. Too much to tell them go to hell. And let the world come to you. Sit there with your 200 members, and let it come to you.

You got to take — you got to stop giving up all of these concessions. You got to tell them we’re back actually at square one, and you have none of that until you can deliver me 218 votes, and if you all can’t deliver me 218 votes, don’t waste my time. I will sit on this floor with my 200 friends and we will sit here and keep voting until hell freezes over, and if you want to wreck the Republican party, if you want to wreck the country, all right, fantastic, you do it. It’s on your shoulders, not ours.

And that’s the sermon for today. And actually how Republicans used to think, and how Republicans used to play hardball because they sure as hell aren’t playing it now.

This is so weak and pathetic.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

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