Rush Limbaugh said the Republican party has become "so irrelevant" and has caused "one of the greatest political disasters" on his radio program Wednesday.
"I was trying to think if ever in my life, I could remember any major political party being so irrelevant," the conservative pundit said. "I have never seen it. I have never seen a major political party simply occupy placeholders, as the Republican party has been doing."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell jointly announced the deal to reopen the government and avoid a potential debt default on the Senate floor Wednesday, after conservative groups shot down Boehner's proposal Tuesday.
Expressing his disappointment with the Senate deal forged between Democratic and Republican leadership Wednesday afternoon, Limbaugh accused Republicans of abandoning their conservative base.
“I can’t tell you what the Republicans think they’re going to achieve, except this. I really do believe that some of this is oriented toward driving the conservatives out of the party.”
Limbaugh blasted the GOP for being too conciliatory with Democrats and President Obama during negotiations, and said Republican leadership has simply "agreed to not oppose anything" on the shutdown and the debt ceiling. The Senate deal, which preserves the Obamacare provision Tea Party Republicans targeted during the shutdown, shows that Republicans are "throwing away the Tea Party" in an "inexplicable political cave-in."
"There hasn't been any opposition, not any serious opposition," he said. "There may have been votes against this or that, votes against Obamacare. There may have been votes against the stimulus, but in terms of a package of policies, or a package of principled beliefs, of opposition expressed daily by party leaders against what's happening in this country, there hasn't been [any opposition]."
Limbaugh said the only true fighters in the fighter were Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee and that the Republican party believes "it’s more important to be liked by the Democrats within the Washington establishment, I guess, than it is to have the current base that they’ve got.”
In sum, he said, Republicans have "made a decision not to exist, for all intents and purposes," after convincing themselves that attacking any Democrat or "criticizing the first black president...makes you racist."
"The Republicans have done everything they can to try to make everyone like them and what they've ended up doing is creating one of the greatest political disasters I've ever seen in my lifetime," Limbaugh concluded.