MSNBC “Morning Joe” anchor Joe Scarborough on Wednesday night slammed 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, saying they were spending more time attacking former President Obama’s policies than President Trump during the second round of primary debates.
“These candidates are attacking Barack Obama’s policy positions more than Donald Trump,” Scarborough, a former GOP congressman who left the Republican Party to become an independent, said on Twitter. “That is politically stupid and crazy.”
The comments from Scarborough, a frequent Trump critic, came as a cadre of Democratic presidential candidates targeted policies that former Vice President Joe Biden helped oversee during the Obama administration.
Candidates including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) got into heated debates with Biden over health care reform.
Biden called the criticism of ObamaCare “malarkey.”
He also faced a barrage of criticism as the debate shifted to immigration. Multiple protesters at one point shouted “3 million deportations” after CNN’s Don Lemon asked the former vice president a question that cited the nearly 800,000 deportations that occurred during the Obama administration.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and de Blasio were among the candidates to target Biden on his record on immigration in the Obama administration.
“You can’t have it both ways,” Booker said. “You invoke President Obama more than anyone in this campaign; you can’t do it when it’s convenient and then dodge it when it’s not.”