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The Republican Party's takeover by the MAGA movement was decades in the making, former GOP strategist Stuart Stephens told MS NOW on Thursday, and the decisions that led to it have left the party with elected leaders who are incapable of taking a stand for themselves or the country as a whole.

This comes as the president made repeated threats to wipe Iran off the face of the earth — and though he hasn't followed through on it for the time being, only a small smattering of Republicans went out of their way to condemn his genocidal rhetoric.

"Stuart, I'll start with you," said anchor Antonia Hylton. "Republicans have repeatedly made this claim since the start of this administration that they have a mandate. I want to know how they can continue to make that case right now, as the president just keeps doubling down on the very things his voters said they did not want."

"Yeah. You know, that's a really great question," said Stevens. "I don't think we had a mandate to have gas prices go through the roof, or mandate to threaten to destroy an entire country, civilization, the Persian Empire. I don't think we had a mandate to keep hiding Epstein files."

"Look, I think what's happened here is something that we did inside the Republican Party, and we didn't realize it. At least I didn't realize it was happening when I was working in the party," said Stevens. "And that as we evolved a system that rewarded compliance, that you got ahead by going along and we punish those that were more individual, who spoke out, who were willing to break with the party. And if you do that decade after decade, I think it's like a genetic experiment. You end up with this extraordinary, highly compliant, weak group of senators and congressmen."

Years ago, he said, "had you said to them that Donald Trump is going to threaten to annihilate another civilization, they would have laughed and said, of course that's never going to happen. But now it's happening or us, the way that we're supporting Russia in this war. We have the vice president over there supporting Putin's candidate in Hungary, and 90 percent of Republicans are against this, but they won't say anything. And I think it's just a collapse of a party unlike anything that we've seen in modern political history."

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