MSNBC host asks GOPer: "Do you hate Obamacare more than you love your country?"

Thomas Roberts' question catches Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn off-guard

Published October 15, 2013 8:50PM (EDT)

  (AP/Alex Brandon)
(AP/Alex Brandon)

Don't be surprised if you never see Tennessee Representative Marsha Blackburn on MSNBC again.

Appearing with MSNBC's Thomas Roberts, the GOP congresswoman was blindsided when, less than two minutes into the interview, Roberts asked, "Do you hate Obamacare more than you love your country?"

"I gotta tell you something: I think that comments like that, that you are making, are just incredibly inappropriate," Blackburn responded.

"You don't think it's incredibly inappropriate to shut down our government?" Roberts said, before continuing, "It’s not inappropriate because you’ve taken the government hostage through a shutdown. And all the American people, you’re now walking them to a cliff — the economy — and you’re going to push them over, one-by-one, based on the fact that you don’t like the ACA. That’s all it is."

"Listen to yourself!" Blackburn said. "My goodness! We didn’t want a government shutdown. We don’t want a government default."

Roberts then turned to comments made by Blackburn in August of this year, when the congresswoman told a meeting of the Economic Club of Nashville, “Everything we can do, whether it’s defunding, delaying, repealing, replacing — all of our energy needs to be in every one of these efforts [against Obamacare]. I applaud Ted Cruz for getting out there and bringing this to the forefront.”

Watch Roberts and Blackburn's whole exchange here, via the Raw Story:


By Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is a former Salon staff writer.

MORE FROM Elias Isquith


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Debt Ceiling Government Shutdown Marsha Blackburn Msnbc Obamacare Thomas Roberts Video