MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough wants his critics to “write it down” now: President Trump will not win re-election in 2020.
The host of “Morning Joe” has looked into a crystal ball and has found that Mr. Trump will fall to a Democrat opponent in two years. His reasoning, despite the election being political ice-ages away, is that suburban voters have been alienated by the Republican and are a key to victory.
“You had the suburbs which, again, was a bedrock constituency of Republicans over the past 20 years,” Mr. Scarborough said, Mediaite reported. “The only way Republicans win presidential elections is by winning the suburbs. … He’s not going to do well in some of these swing areas as he did in 2016, unless he radically changes. We have absolutely no reason, in front of us, no evidence in front of us to believe he can radically change enough to win those votes back. So, that pathway to victory has to be much more narrow after 2018, and I would say this has been a clarifying election — clarifying in the sense that Donald Trump isn’t going to win re-election. I said it, write it down.”
Mr. Scarborough’s statement, however, invalidates a prediction from last month in which he said Mr. Trump would not even seek re-election.
“I will say it again,” he told CBS’ Stephen Colbert Oct. 18, “I don’t think [Republicans are] going to have to step up to challenge Donald Trump because I don’t think Donald Trump is going to run for re-election. He didn’t want to be elected president. He didn’t think he was going to be elected president. He didn’t even think he was going to get the Republican nomination. He’s going to cash out.”
The MSNBC host, a staunch critic of president, recently asserted in an op-ed for The Washington Post that Mr. Trump has inflicted more harm to the American dream than “any foreign adversary.”
“The question for voters this fall is whether their country will move beyond this troubled chapter in history or whether they will continue supporting a politician who has done more damage to the dream of America than any foreign adversary ever could,” he wrote in a 9/11 piece.
Mr. Scarborough backtracked on his wording in response to negative feedback.
“I should have shown more care on the tweet’s wording and the column’s conclusion,” he tweeted on Sept. 11.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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