Stephen Colbert Grills Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on ‘Fascist’ Republicans

Four years ago, Joe Scarborough went on The Late Show to declare his independence from the Republican Party. On Thursday night, Stephen Colbert tried to push him even further away.

The appearance started out innocuous enough, with Colbert joking that Scarborough’s Morning Joe (and life) partner was “giving off real John Boehner vibes” with her glass of red wine and the three hosts sharing their challenging experiences with the second COVID-19 vaccine while trying not to scare off any skeptics who might have been watching.

But the conversation really picked up when Colbert asked Scarborough to weigh in on the state of his former party post-Trump.

“I’m not saying Republican Party’s fascist, but the guy that they’re following is a fascist,” Scarborough said, at which point Colbert stopped him in his tracks.

“They’re not fascist, they’re fascist-curious,” Colbert joked in response, cracking Brzezinski up. At first, Scarborough wouldn’t even go that far, prompting Colbert to ask, “If you’re following a guy who’s fascist, you’re not a fascist? What are you?”

“I’m trying to be polite here,” Scarborough said as Brzezinski whispered “they’re fascists” over his shoulder. “I’ll tell you what they are. They’re increasingly illiberal, they’re increasingly authoritarian, and they’re increasingly dumb, ignorant, xenophobic.” Or as Brzezinski added, “A bunch of morons.”

Ultimately, Scarborough said, when someone like Liz Cheney is considered insufficiently conservative because she believed Donald Trump should have been impeached, the situation has become “absolutely ridiculous.”

“Their definition of conservative, their definition of what a good Republican is, is somebody who’s in this personality cult following Donald Trump,” Scarborough said. “And it’s sad because conservatism has suffered because of it and the Republican Party is, I think, going to suffer in the long term because of it.”