CHRIS CUOMO (CO-HOST): The idea that we are talking about Erick Erickson and Mark Levin, are now coming up as these mainstream names in your party, Matt Lewis said, well we got to listen to what Erick Erickson says -- you know, usually you guys run away from these guys as your crazy cousins. Now they're trying to save your party. What is the -- where are the real Republicans that you guys always used to tout to say who the GOP was? All we heard after 2012 about how you learned to be the big tent.
MATT LEWIS: I would make a -- Well this is inside baseball. But I would make a big distinction between Erick Erickson and Mark Levin. I think that Mark Levin--
CUOMO: You're right, it is inside baseball, either way you're dealing with somebody who's a non-conformist traditionally for the GOP.
LEWIS: Well, and that shows you how out of the mainstream Donald Trump is and the strange bedfellows we've been talking about. But look, I think Mark Levin, in a way, helped create Donald Trump, and sort of provided him cover for a long time. Now he's backing away from it. I think Erick Erickson is an example of somebody who, I hope, could be the future of the conservative movement as a leader. An adult, someone who's sort of up and coming, because that's what's really been lacking. Rush Limbaugh, I think, could have stepped up early on and taken on Donald Trump and written him out of the movement, and he abdicated the responsibility to do so. I think someone like Erick Erickson in the future could provide that leadership to help police the right and make sure that real conservatives, not populist nationalists like Donald Trump, have control of the movement and the party.
ALISYN CAMEROTA (CO-HOST): Ok, well, I'll throw another name out there, Glenn Beck, he's also gone after Donald Trump. I mean it is strange bedfellows in seeing all these different allegiances.
