Scarborough: Vance ‘one of dumbest picks ever’

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough blasted former President Trump’s pick of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his vice presidential candidate on Monday, predicting that the selection could hurt Trump’s campaign.

“I’ve never got a good answer in my own mind figuring this out. I can usually figure some things out in politics, not all, but I’ve never figured out this JD Vance pick,” Scarborough said on “Morning Joe.” 

“It just strikes me as one of the dumbest picks ever,” he continued. “It adds nothing. It accentuates [Trump’s] weaknesses, accentuates his weaknesses on abortion, accentuates his weaknesses on women.”

Vance, a first-term senator who has faced criticism over his right-wing positions on issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights as well as his past attacks on Trump, was thrust into the spotlight last week when he was named the GOP vice presidential candidate.

Scarborough zeroed in on Vance’s abortion record and how it could turn away moderate and women voters. While he has tempered his stance in recent months, Vance ran for Senate as a hard-line anti-abortion candidate and at times advocated for a national abortion ban.

“If you go back and look at voting patterns over the past two, three years, I would say it’s sort of the biggest political earthquake as far as an issue goes since Prop 13 in 1978 in California,” Scarborough said, referring to the state’s massive property tax reform vote.

“It has changed the landscape of American politics,” he said of abortion rights. “Why get somebody that doubles down in that area?”