MSNBC Analyst Says ‘The Left’ Does Not Control The Democratic Party

 Members of a MSNBC panel said Tuesday that the “left wing” does not control the Democratic Party, while Republicans are “captive to” supporters of former President Donald Trump.

“The Republican Party has this problem, is that they are captive to this base that’s very extreme. So, Donald Trump or anybody who pays homage to Donald Trump can’t win a national election. Donald Trump cannot,” John Heilemann, a national affairs analyst for MSNBC. “His support nationally keeps going down. He could never win a majority of the vote in any circumstance. Donald Trump is not able to — I would say, at this point, Donald Trump can’t even run the table through the narrow path of the Electoral College. He is that toxic.”

Trump came under fire after some high-profile endorsements, like Republican gubernatorial candidates Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Kari Lake of Arizona as well as Senate candidates Blake Masters of Arizona, Adam Laxalt of Nevada and Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania, lost during the Nov. 8 midterm elections where the Republican Party underperformed expectations of a nation-wide “red wave.” Trump-endorsed Senate candidate and former NFL running back Herschel Walker faces a Tuesday runoff with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

“You can’t win a Republican nomination without appealing to Donald Trump’s base voters. You can be Joe Biden and say, as he did in 2020, ‘You know, I won’t compete with Bernie Sanders on the left. I won’t compete with Elizabeth Warren on the left,’” Heilemann added. “He won the Democratic nomination without embracing Medicare-for-all, without embracing Green New Deal, without doing any of the things the left wanted him to do.”

WATCH:

“You can’t win a Republican nomination without appealing to Donald Trump’s base voters. You can be Joe Biden and say, as he did in 2020, ‘You know, I won’t compete with Bernie Sanders on the left. I won’t compete with Elizabeth Warren on the left,’” Heilemann added. “He won the Democratic nomination without embracing Medicare-for-all, without embracing Green New Deal, without doing any of the things the left wanted him to do.”

“It’s just that the left has a big voice in the Democratic Party, but it’s not a barrier to a more centrist politician winning the nomination, as Biden proved. In the Republican Party the base has made it impossible to get over their hurdle and then be a nationally competitive candidate,” Heilemann said after a brief interruption by Donny Deutsch. “That’s the problem Republicans face. That’s what Trump and Trumpism have done to the party, they’ve created a circumstance where it’s almost impossible to nominate someone who clears that bar and is that electable on a national basis.”