Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah) and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough ripped the vociferous American critics of the "Brexit" decision to leave the European Union on Tuesday, saying they were hypocrites.
Scarborough noted in the midst of his interview on Morning Joe that Lee was one of the few public American supporters of the vote to leave the EU.
"What they've experienced in the past few years that convinced them to make this change last week was the fact that they were subject to a large, distant, centralized power," Lee said. "A centralized power that was becoming increasingly intrusive and increasingly bureaucratic. Bureaucratic in the sense that there were laws that were foisted upon the people that were developed by unelected, unaccountable, distant bureaucrats."
Scarborough agreed, saying the situation with the EU had "just kept getting worse." He painted a comparison with what he said the U.S. had done in the past to Israel, forcing them into deals "that we would never take in a billion years."
"But presidents force Israel into deals because they want to win a Nobel Prize for peace," Scarborough said. "We would no more subject ourselves to distant regulations from Brussels then we would turn Texas over to Mexico City. I mean, isn't it outrageous how hypocritical Americans are judging the British for doing what we would have never allowed ourselves to get into in the first place?"
"Absolutely," Lee said.
Lee said he had begun drafting legislation maintaining U.S. relations with Britain in the wake of the exit vote and directing the administration to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement.
"Again, it's some of these same principles that are at play here in the United States," he said. "It's different and yet there are some more trends. The American people, as I explained in my book, are increasingly finding themselves subject to a large, distant, centralized power, one that is becoming increasingly aggressive and increasingly bureaucratic."