"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough reamed into Senate Republicans and four Democrats who voted against the passage of a bill expanding background checks. Particularly targeting Republicans, Scarborough said that the party was "moving toward extinction."
"You do not ignore 90 percent of the American people on an issue of public safety," Scarborough said, citing poll numbers that consistently showed nine in 10 respondents supporting the measure.
"Mark it down — this is going to be a turning point in the history of the Republican Party as well," he added. "And let those out there chattering, let them chatter away all they want to and scream like hyenas. Let them do what they want to do.
"This party that killed this background check yesterday — this party is moving toward extinction. A new Republican Party is going to replace it. And this is going to be a vote that people are going to look back on and say, 'That party — that extremism — that was unsustainable."
On Wednesday afternoon, the Senate failed to garner the 60 votes necessary to pass the measure. It drew an especially angry reaction from President Barack Obama, who made new gun legislation a key legislative goal of the start of his second term.
Scarborough vowed that the setback was just the "beginning" of the fight for gun-control advocates — a fight he said wouldn't end until, at least, stricter background checks are in place.
"The President did not suffer a defeat," Scarborough said. "The American people suffered the defeat yesterday in the United States Senate."
Watch the clip below, via MSNBC:
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