Scarborough questions whether Warren, Klobuchar should drop out ‘to help consolidate efforts’ against Sanders

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Monday questioned whether Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) should drop out of the Democratic presidential race, noting that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is building a lead as other candidates stay in the contest but fail to build substantial support. 

Scarborough spoke of increased chatter that Warren and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) might need to drop out to “consolidate efforts against Bernie Sanders.” 

Warren is in fourth place in Nevada’s caucuses, which took place over the weekend, while Klobuchar is now in sixth place. 

“People are talking about how as well as she’s done, as good of a campaign she’s run, it is time for her to get out of the race,” Scarborough said of Klobuchar before pivoting to Warren. “A lot of people starting to talk about Elizabeth Warren, who finished weak again.”

“She finished in fourth place in her neighboring home state where she was supposed to win in New Hampshire last week. This week another disappointing finish. She’s maybe in single digits. She’s up to 10 percent now, but she’s in single digits in most of these counts,” he said. 

“Is it time for Elizabeth Warren? If she keeps finishing in fourth, fifth place, is it time to her to get out of the race to help consolidate efforts against Bernie Sanders? That’s what a lot of buzz on Twitter suggesting that’s the case,” Scarborough concluded.

Sanders easily won the Nevada caucuses over the weekend, receiving 47.2 percent of the vote with 87 percent of precincts reporting. Former Vice President Joe Biden followed with 21 percent, and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg had 13.7 percent.

Sanders also led a CBS News–YouGov national poll released on Sunday with 28 percent support, compared to Warren at 19 percent. Biden is at 17 percent in the same poll, followed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Buttigieg, who come in with 13 and 10 percent support, respectively. Klobuchar is sixth in the poll at 5 percent support.

The Sanders campaign and some supporters have accused MSNBC of being biased against the senator.

Over the weekend, Chris Matthews came under intense criticism after comparing Sanders’s decisive win in the Nevada caucuses to the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, with some on social media calling for the “Hardball” host to resign.

“I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940,” Matthews said during MSNBC’s live coverage of the caucuses on Saturday. “And the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can that be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.'”

Criticism quickly poured in on social media over Matthews using the analogy as it pertains to Sanders, who is Jewish. Most of Sanders’s family members were killed in the Holocaust.

Included in the responses was Mike Casca, who serves as Sanders’s 2020 communications director.

never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the nazis to the third reich.

but here we are. https://t.co/2G1bqZ6bkI

— mike casca (@cascamike) February 22, 2020

Chris Matthews just compared Bernie Sanders, a Jewish man whose relatives were killed by the Nazis, to the Nazi army. He should be fired immediately. #FireChrisMatthews https://t.co/Z6irGFuXK4

— Krishan Patel (@IAmKrishanPatel) February 22, 2020

Updated at 4:42 p.m.