Van Jones: 'Despicable' Republicans, Tea Party Are Intentionally Hurting Americans Economically For Political Gain

On Friday, Van Jones, former advisor to President Obama, appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" and argued that Republicans and the Tea Party are intentionally destroying the American economy so that they can benefit politically and get Obama out of office.

"The entire Republican party for the past four years has been doing something that I think is despicable," he said.

Jones explained they have been implementing a "bodies on the beach" strategy where "they" think that the more bodies that pile up on the beach, the more likely people will want to "fire the lifeguard" -- or in this case, vote Obama out of office.

"They want Obama fired, so they don’t care how many Americans are in economic pain. The more Americans, in fact, that are in economic pain, the more they see for themselves in political gain. And that’s why you’ve seen, not just the Tea Party, but the entire Republican party refuse to step up to the plate on common sense stuff like tax cuts for small businesses, tax help for veterans," Jones said.

Jone continued: "You Go down the line and you’ll see that things Republicans stood for, they now stand against and won’t pass in this Congress because they want to hurt the American people economically so they can gain politically. That’s not just the Tea Party."

But Sen. Chuck Schumer disagreed slightly with Jones, saying that there are some Republicans who are willing to work with Democrats but the Tea Party is trying to hijack Congress.

The trouble is, he said, "the Tea Party group is gaining ascendancy in the Republican party. Bad for them, but worse for the country."

"One of the worse things that happened that will prevent us from reaching a resolution of the fiscal cliff in December was the loss of Dick Lugar," said Schumer. "He was respected, he was liked. And the guy he lost to said — he’s a Tea Party guy — he says, 'I believe there’s too much compromise in Washington. The only compromise I want is when Democrats surrender to Republicans.' How — that is not how the founding fathers set up our system."

"Now, the good news is America always corrects itself. It may correct itself in this election. One of the reasons that we’re doing much better in the Senate than anyone thought is because the hard right, the Tea Party is knocking off mainstream Republican candidates and putting up their candidates. Last time, that led to the election of Democrats in places like Colorado, Nevada, Delaware."

Watch the segment via MSNBC below:

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(h/t: Mediaite)