Scarborough: Trump driven ‘bats— crazy’ by his insecurity

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough fired back at Donald Trump on Thursday, saying in an interview that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s insecurity has made him “bats— crazy.”

{mosads}“He is insecure,” Scarborough said during an episode of Politico’s “Off Message” podcast. “That’s always driven him — I’ll say it — bats— crazy.”

Scarborough, who hosts MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” was reportedly close to Trump early in the primary, but their relationship has become more contentious, with the two trading shots on Twitter and television.

Scarborough explained on Thursday that Trump turned on him because of his insecurity.

“Ratings, numbers,” he said. “Saying that [Democratic presidential candidate] Bernie Sanders draws more people than him. Mocking him for only having 5,000 people at [a rally on the National Mall over Memorial Day weekend] when he thought he was going to have 400,000.”

The pundit also called a report that he had submitted questions for Trump’s approval ahead of an interview between the two “total bulls—.”

The two have intensified their rivalry this week, with Scarborough saying Trump is “acting like a bigot.”

“Hey Donald, guess what? I’m not gonna support you until you get your act together. You’re acting like a bush-league loser. You’re acting like a racist. You’re acting like a bigot,” Scarborough said Wednesday on his show.

Trump responded Thursday on Twitter by lashing out at the “Morning Joe” ratings and retweeting someone who called Scarborough a “RINO” — which stands for Republican in name only.

Nobody is watching @Morning_Joe anymore. Gone off the deep end – bad ratings. You won’t believe what I am watching now!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2016

“@JoeDeFranco: Top RINO hack for MSNBC Joey Scarborough on the air and calling the next President Trump a racist and bigot. Shame on you”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2016