Joe Scarborough predicts Trump won’t run in 2020

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, a frequent critic of President Trump, predicts that Trump won’t run for reelection in 2020.

In an op-ed published late last week in The Washington Post, Scarborough writes that GOP lawmakers are “baffled” by Trump’s future.

“Republican politicians seem just as baffled by the reality TV star’s future as they were the day he first launched this publicity stunt gone wildly wrong,” he writes.

The “Morning Joe” co-host notes that several GOP lawmakers, including Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Texas) and retiring Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), have sidestepped questions about whether or not they would support a Trump reelection bid.

He blames GOP leaders for “marching alongside a bumbling bigot” rather than standing up to Trump, tearing into them as “lap dogs” and “morally enfeebled enablers.” 

But, Scarborough, a former Florida GOP congressman who left the party last year, writes that “Republicans on Capitol Hill can relax” because “it’s becoming clear” that Trump will not run in 2020 due to the swirling legal issues surrounding his close allies, including family members and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

Scarborough points to recent reports that Trump’s legal team is preparing for Cohen to “flip” on the president and cooperate with federal prosecutors.

{mosads}He also writes that the recent FBI raid of Cohen’s office “has stirred more fear and loathing inside White House offices than at any time since President Richard Nixon battled Watergate prosecutors in the summer of 1973.”

Instead, Scarborough suggests that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley should run, after she pushed back when Trump’s economic adviser suggested she was confused when she said more Russia sanctions were planned.

“With all due respect, I do not get confused,” Haley said.

Scarborough praised Haley, the former South Carolina governor, for that statement, writing that she proves she will not “allow herself to be humiliated” by Trump, unlike others close to him.

“How wonderful would it be for our daughters to see this woman — this daughter of immigrants — take a debate stage to coldly cut the Donald down to size, revealing to the world once and for all that this bloated emperor has no clothes?” he wrote.