Scarborough unloads on Rubio for fundraising off him

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough unloaded on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Tuesday, blasting the presidential candidate for fundraising off remarks he made that were critical of a Rubio ad.

Scarborough was mentioned in a Rubio campaign fundraising email that went out Monday morning, which sought to fundraise off Scarborough’s claim that a new Rubio campaign ad was “nativist.”

In the ad, Rubio says the 2016 election is “about all of us who feel out of touch in our own country.”

{mosads}Scarborough on Tuesday blasted the Rubio campaign as “thin-skinned,” and mocked the Florida Republican as “trying to appeal to Donald Trump’s crowd.”

“Here’s a guy that flies around in private jets every day, and he has for years,” Scarborough said. “Here’s a guy that sits in luxury suites at Miami Dolphins football games, and other football games around America. Here’s a guy that got paid $800,000 by a massive powerful Manhattan publishing company for a book … and he’s got the guts to go on and lift a line out of this nativist playbook?”

“He wants to appeal to Donald Trump’s crowd,” the host continued. “This is a guy that does belong in this country, because this is a guy whose … family embodies the American dream and he’s doing this nativist B.S.”

On Monday, Scarborough took to Twitter to criticize an ad in which Rubio says the 2016 election is “about all of us who feel out of touch in our own country,” where “those with traditional values” are “branded bigots and haters.”

Marco goes full-on nativist. Says he feels out of place in his own country. It’s such a crass play. It’s offensive. https://t.co/RPtlejaTyV

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) December 15, 2015

The second most nativist statement according to pollsters is “These days, I feel like a stranger in my own country.” https://t.co/sxKxMQ1tA2

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) December 15, 2015

The Rubio campaign responded with a fundraising email blasting the “elitist members of the media, like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough,” for “claiming Marco’s remarks are ‘nativist.’ ”

“Seems like, in a country where opportunity is slipping out of reach for so many, where traditional values are being scorned, that’s being humiliated by foreign regimes … it’s fair for some Americans to feel a little out of place, to worry that this country is off the tracks,” the fundraising email states.
 
“But elitist members of the media, like MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, are claiming Marco’s remarks are ‘nativist’ saying he’s trying to pander,” the email continues. “The guy who was moved to tears when Pope Francis praised America’s immigrant tradition, the whose grandfather taught him about the American Dream in Spanish — this guy’s a nativist?!”

Scarborough responded on Tuesday: “It’s such a crass and ham-fisted play.”