Chris Matthews was joined Sept. 23, 2013 by MSNBC analyst and former McCain strategist Steve Schmidt to discuss Senator Ted Cruz and his war on President Obama.
To begin, Matthews talks about Sarah Palin, who jumped into the “defund Obamacare” debate this with her recent defense of Ted Cruz’ efforts to defund the program by any means necessary.
In an exclusive Op-Ed published by Breitbart.com, Palin wrote last Friday:
If the Senate doesn’t get behind Ted Cruz’s efforts to defund Obamacare, it won’t be because of any failure on Ted’s part. It’ll be because there weren’t enough principled leaders to stand with him, and that would be a tragic loss, not for Ted, but for America.
[…]
As I said in my speech at CPAC this year, it’s time for the Senate to put itself on Cruz Control.
Ignore the peanut gallery pundits. They’ve written my political obituary so many times, I’m practically Lazarus. Now they’re trying to destroy Ted Cruz. Good luck with that, you weasels. Texans are just as tough as Alaskans. Smaller, but just as tough.
[…]
Oh, and a little reminder to Republican senators up for re-election in 2014: Moose season ends soon, allowing more time on one’s hands. So, we’ll be watching your votes very carefully this week.
When asked about the above quote, Schmidt replied:
Well look, this isn’t new news. For the last couple of year we’ve had this wing of the party running roughshod over the rest of the party, tossing out terms like ‘Rino’ and saying ‘we’re going to purge the moderates out of the party.’
[…]
We’ve lost five senate seats over the course of the last two election cycles and fundamentally we need Republicans, whether they’re running for president, whether they’re in the leadership of the Congress, to stand up against a lot of this asininity.And you finally see it with Ted Cruz. Maybe he’s the one whose gone ‘a bridge too far’ and as we come up against a potential default, potential government shutdown, wise people understand the political consequences for the Republican Party.
Maybe we’ll start seeing our elected leaders stop being intimidated by this nonsense; have the never, have the guts to stand up and say enough is enough. This isn’t what the Republican Party is about. To fight to take conservatism’s good name back from the freak show that’s been running wild for four years.
You can watch the exchange below from MSNBC:
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