Scarborough on House Republicans Calling for Cheney’s Investigation: This Sort of Talk Is Bad for Everybody

SCARBOROUGH: “And Jonathan Lemire, Republicans in the House are going to have a one vote majority. They are living in a bubble. They’re going to have to work with Democrats. We’re seeing that. We’re going to be talking to Hakeem Jeffries today, and they’re going to be able to pass Mike Johnson’s bill only if Democrats allow that to happen. And you have these subcommittees coming out talking about arresting political opponents, like recommending investigations into that. I mean, the margins are so bare in the House and in the Senate, these people are acting like they won by 20, 25 percentage points. And I will say even inside the people close to Donald Trump, they have been saying for weeks now, no retribution. He’s not going to do retribution. We don’t have time for retribution. I mean, this sort of talk early on, it’s bad for everybody. It’s bad for the House Republicans. It’s bad for Donald Trump. It’s bad for, you know, the markets. I mean, this is — this is what we’ve been talking about. Retribution blew back on Democrats through the years. Donald Trump will — will probably be the first to say that he got elected in part because he was sitting at a criminal defendants table this summer, made him a martyr. You put Liz Cheney there or even talk about it, you even talk about it and you put out these — these stupid reports that this House subcommittee is put out, you’re making her a martyr. You’re making her bigger. You’re making her more powerful. You’re making her everything —”
BRZEZINSKI: “More important.”
SCARBOROUGH: “— that these people would not want to make her. But they’re doing it. They’re playing right into her hands.”
LEMIRE: “And one of Trump’s overnight Truth Social posts, he claimed he had the largest mandate in 129 years. That’s obviously not true at all. He won by less than 2 points, but also neither do Republicans. The margin in the Senate relatively slim. And as you say, the House, it’s about one vote. They’re going to need Democrats help. This is not the way to get it. And we’re seeing here a familiar dynamic that we saw in the first Trump Administration as well, where his team will put together a plan, even occasionally try to work across the aisle, work on immigration, try to get a deal done. And then Trump himself gives in to his worst impulses, his impulses of division or revenge or whatever it might be, and blows it up himself with some sort of tweet or Truth Social posts or other irrational action. And we’re seeing that already now where he is going to come. He doesn’t have 129 year mandate, but he’s got a unified Washington. There is an ability to get some things done that he wants at the beginning of his term. It’s not going to happen if the focus is retribution, if the focus is revenge on political enemies, which certainly would alienate Democrats and make them not incentivized to help him at all.”