Scarborough: Trump-Gingrich Ticket Would Create a 'Meltdown'

There isn't a "sufficient political balance" between Newt Gingrich and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump that would make them good running mates in the general election, and the combination could cause problems for the party this fall, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Monday

"I think that would be a very imbalanced ticket that would make voters, especially swing voters, especially nervous in the fall," Scarborough said on his "Morning Joe" program. "Newt Gingrich is a force unto himself, as is Donald Trump. I do not think these two chemical elements put together actually benefit each other."

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, also on the program, agreed that the ticket would not be a good one, but for different reasons.

"It's also an old ticket," he said. "Newt Gingrich will be 73 years old. And one of the aspects of this election that's really interesting is that we've never, not one time in the history of the country, once we've made generational change in the presidency. We've never gone back. Barack Obama is technically a baby boomer, born in 1961, although culturally I would argue, he is not. And now we're going to go back to have a president who's turning 70 years old, whether it's Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, a 73-year-old vice president. I just don't think that generationally, that makes sense."

Scarborough said that he believes Gingrich could have won in 2012, had then-nominee Mitt Romney not had as much money, but he would have also advised Gingrich not to pick Trump as a vice president.

"The two together doesn't make sense," he said. "Gingrich accomplished a lot. He was an historic figure. You talk about the contract with America, but because of Newt Gingrich, we balanced the budget for the first time in a generation, balanced it four years in a row since the 1920s, passed welfare reform while liberals were screaming and jumping out of windows saying little children were going to be killed because of Newt Gingrich and he was such an evil man."

But even with his achievements, Gingrich was a divisive force, said Scarborough, "and to put Trump and Gingrich together on a ticket is just inviting a meltdown."

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