GOP Adviser Slams His Own Party As A ‘Freak Show’ And An ‘Intellectual Wasteland’

A former Republican White House adviser is lashing out at his own Party, calling it a "freak show" and saying that it has become an "intellectual wasteland." While these criticisms are on point, the timing is not. The Republican Party has been on this downhill slide for decades, and to say that it has only just now become a freak show ignores nearly 40 years of GOP politics. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains why what's happening to today's Republican Party has been in the making for decades.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

You know what is one of my favorite kind of stories to cover Republicans and former Republicans, like kind of on the fence, Republicans that love to come out and say, Oh my God, what has happened to my beloved Republican party? Because clearly they haven't been paying attention for the last 40 years of American politics. The latest individual to come out and say, Oh my God, my party is a freak show. And yes, that is the word he used, is a former G O P White House advisor by the name of Peter Wainer. Now, Mr. Wainer had this to say recently about where his beloved Republican party has gone, like so many, who now represent the G O P Herschel Walker displays. Not just a lack of interest and serious ideas, but contempt for them. Ben Unitedness is chic. The G O P has turned on virtually every noble principle at once, claimed to stand for.

It has become a freak show embodied in people like Trump and Walker, Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Bobber, Ron Johnson and Josh Holly Blake Masters and Doug Masano, Adam Laxalt and JD Vance, Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Mike Linde, Tucker Carlson, Ands Goca, Eric Matis and Paula White. They shape its sensibilities providing the script for everyone else to follow. Now, before I continue, let me just say he is right. And I do appreciate the fact that he said claimed to stand for, you know, what happened to the things the Republicans party claimed to stand for. He didn't say what happened to the things that we used to stand for, cuz he knows, he knows the Republican party's never actually stood for things they've just claimed to. He continues whatever you thought about the G o p pre-Trump. And it may be that the ugliness was much closer to the surface than I wanted to acknowledge at the time.

The Republican Party is today much more conspiracy minded, anti-democratic and antit truth. This worries me because I love my country and it disheartens me because I once admired my party Today. However, because of its diseased state, the most urgent political task is to defeat it in the hopes of eventually rebuilding it. Now, typically this is the point where I would say, Where have you been for the last 40 years? But I can't even do that on this one because Mr. Weiner here actually gets it. Like when he said this part, and it may be that the ugliness was much closer to the surface than I wanted to acknowledge at the time that shows that he gets it right, that he does understand what has been happening for the last 40 years. He basically says, Listen, I probably went through with blinders, okay? I know that my party never stood for the things that it claimed to stand for, but at least we claim to stand for things. We don't even have that anymore. So I do for the first time, I will commend

Peter Wainer for making these comments, and I will agree with him a hundred percent. And I do think, however, that it is so important to understand that yes, as u as the go, P is today, which is about the ugliest it has ever been, probably the ugliest it's ever been. I'll give you that. It didn't start with Trump. It didn't start with Trump, okay? You could argue it started with Nixon, right? And the, uh, criminality of that administration. I think that's a good assessment. But it really got kick started with Reagan. Reagan launched his presidential campaign on racism. Okay, go back and look at that. That is exactly how Ronald Reagan came to power by invoking racism in the south as part of the southern strategy that forever changed politics.