MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski and analyst Steve Schmidt had strong language Tuesday for President Donald Trump and his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, calling the former a "dictator in the making" and the latter "illegitimate" before he's even been confirmed.
Kavanaugh begins his confirmation hearings Tuesday as Democrats mount a last-ditch effort to defeat his nomination. No Senate Republicans have signaled they will oppose him since Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July, and at least two need to vote no to torpedo his chances.
Schmidt, the ex-Republican strategist and vociferous critic of the Trump White House, previously helmed the successful confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito while working in the George W. Bush administration. He and other Trump opponents have been a sharp critic of the administration's handling of Kavanaugh's process.
"What we see here is an illegitimate process that will yield an illegitimate Supreme Court justice and further degrade in the public's mind the legitimacy of the institution of the Supreme Court itself," Schmidt said on "Morning Joe."
He sarcastically complimented Trump as being "absolutely indefatigable" in his "vileness, his illiberalism, his fetish for autocracy."
"It exhausts everybody," Schmidt said. "The problem with it is that when you are in a fight, there's only two ways to win a fight. You either have to bring your opponent to submission ... or you wear them out. Trump wears people out. He exhausts them. He numbs them, He completely—"
"That sounds like a dictator in the making, actually," Brzezinski said.
"He just completely wears them out," Schmidt said.
Brzezinski has previously called Trump a "great dictator" and questioned his mental stability. She also agreed with Schmidt's statement in May that the president is a "stone cold racist."