Scarborough: ‘Nobody thinks Romney's going to win’

O'DONNELL: everything that every prominent pro- Romney Republican is saying on TV these days about Mitt Romney . Joe , as most of you of course know, is a former Republican congressman from Florida who has a -- who has much better access to what the Republicans are really thinking than any of the rest of us here at MSNBC . This morning on "MORNING_JOE," he directed the discussion to why Rick Santorum should get out of the race in order to avoid a possible crushing defeat in Pennsylvania and preserve his viability as a candidate in 2016 . Mark Halperin then smartly made the point that if Romney wins the presidency, there will be no possibility for Santorum to run in 2016 . And that's when Joe revealed why he and other Republicans are talking so seriously about 2016 right now.

MARK HALPERIN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Santorum in '16, I think there are two caveats to that. One is if Romney wins, there is no '16. Or three caveats. If Romney wins, there's no '16. Two, '16 has got a lot of powerful people running in the Republican party .

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC ANCHOR: Nobody thinks Romney's going to win. Let's just be honest. Can we just say this for anybody at everybody?

SCARBOROUGH: Can we just say this for everybody at home?

HALPERIN: He might.

SCARBOROUGH: The Republican establishment -- I have yet to meet a single person in the Republican establishment that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election this year. They won't say it on TV because they've got to go on TV and they don't want people writing them nasty e-mails. I obviously don't care. But I have yet to meet anybody in the Republican establishment, that worked for George W. Bush , that works in the Republican Congress , that worked for Ronald Reagan that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election .

O'DONNELL: Joy Behar is going to be here next. And I am going to push her and push her and push her until she tells me how she really feels about Sarah Palin .