SCARBOROUGH GETS TESTY WITH KRUGMAN: 'If People Don't Agree With You ... You Have To Take Cheap Shots'

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and New York Times economist Paul Krugman went head-to-head Monday night in a taped debate moderated by PBS' Charlie Rose, which Krugman hinted did not go so well earlier today.

The debate took its predictable form on topics on which the pair has not seen eye-to-eye over the past month. Krugman argued that the deficit was not a major problem and that the government should be spending more money to aid an economy still in recovery with weak unemployment.

Scarborough argued that, so to speak, Washington can "walk and chew gum" at the same time — meaning they should be able to address the nation's debt and fix the economy.

Scarborough repeatedly pressed Krugman on some of his past warnings about the nation's debt, leading Krugman to suggest that Scarborough was engaging in "ad hominem" attacks.

The debate got a bit testy at the end, when Scarborough shook his head at Krugman when he murmured, "Wow," at one of Krugman's arguments. Scarborough compared Krugman to Al Gore's sigh-filled performance during a 2000 presidential debate.

"You know what? If you could just stop from saying, 'Wow,' and let me just finish a point, Paul," Scarborough said. "You and Al Gore really need to talk about it. This is a real problem. If people don't agree with you all the time ... you just feel like you have to take the cheap shots."

Here's a 2005 Krugman column that serves as an example of the overall point Scarborough kept trying to make. In it, Krugman warned of a rising deficit that would grow even more with increased costs of Medicare and Medicaid.

Krugman pushed back on that point by saying that times have changed.

"Why don't we try to argue the substance," Krugman said, "and not play gotcha?"

At another point, Krugman asked Scarborough for evidence that the focus should be on spending and not the "clear and present threat of high unemployment." Krugman slammed Simpson and Bowles, who predicted a crisis two years ago that has not materialized. He also cited debt hawks that have been wrong about warnings that the U.S. could have a crisis like Greece.

"You've made some wrong projections yourself in the past," Scarborough responded.

"This is so disappointing," Krugman told Scarborough. "All you can do is ad hominem and say, 'Oh, you said this. We're trying to have a serious discussion here."

"No, it's not. It's disappointing to you," Scarborough said. "... Because you've changed your tune."

"Because the world changed," Krugman responded.

For all of their testiness, there were some points on which Krugman and Scarborough didn't differ much.

When Krugman asked, Scarborough said that he believes there should be investment in infrastructure and other government spending.

"That means spending more money right now," Krugman said. Scarborough said he'd be willing to provide up to $200 billion in infrastructure spending, something that seemed to surprise Krugman.

But Scarborough said that it was a "straw man's argument" to pretend that all Republicans want European-style austerity. He tried to make the point that he was not worried about short-term deficits, but rather long-term debt. He also said that reasonable — but certainly not all — Republicans like him want reforms to Medicare, Medicaid and, to a lesser extent, Social Security for the long-term.

The moderator Rose asked Krugman at what point he would agree with Scarborough that something needs to be done about the debt.

"It has to be ... I don't know where, but it's way above here," Krugman said, citing Japan, which once had debt that was 200 percent of its GDP.

Krugman attempted to specify the difference between what he said was a "spending problem vs. a health care problem."

"Looking over the past five years, we do not have a spending problem," Krugman said. If anything, "we've been spending too little in the past five years."

Scarborough called it nonsense to dismiss the debt as a concern, and said the argument that the deficit is currently shrinking is a misnomer.

"That'd be like me going to my doctor and seeing my cholesterol come down 25 percent because it was at 400 before that," Scarborough said.

And in the end, the two came down largely on the opposite ends on which they started. Scarborough said that a lot of important people agree with him, and Krugman said that the economy needs more stimulus.

"I agree with the majority of people. And it's not just inside this ... incestuous, whatever you call it," Scarborough said. "... We believe we have a long-term debt problem."