Politics
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough Stuns Viewers With Defense Of Trump’s Iran Strategy
MSNBC viewers on Monday were treated to a rare occurrence: Joe Scarborough defending President Donald Trump.
Since the election, Scarborough has admitted he and “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski may have dragged their program too far to the left, acknowledging that they traveled to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump in a reset of their relationship.
The spirit of that agreement played out on Monday when Scarborough defended Trump’s ability to launch more than a dozen “bunker buster” missiles into Iran, saying Hillary Clinton and other Democrats would have done the same as commander-in-chief.
Trump previously promised that he’d take about two weeks to make a decision.
Scarborough, a left-leaning former Republican congressman, argued that Trump had no other choice but to neutralize Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon.
“I find it hard to believe that Bush 41, Bush 43, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton – you know, go down the list – any president wouldn’t have felt compelled to take that strike,” he said.
There were “no good options” for Trump when he made that call, Scarborough told his panel of guests.
“What would Monday look like if he hadn’t have moved?” he asked panelist David Ignatius, who agreed that another president would have made the same call.
Trump “inherited” a “battle plan” from the presidents before him, Ignatius explained, clarifying that nothing about Trump’s decision to strike three nuclear enrichment facilities was new thinking. All have been eyed by the U.S. and Israel for years as the loci where atomic-bomb grade uranium was being enriched.
Both Bushes and Obama considered “this scenario” when “diplomacy wasn’t working,” Ignatius added.
Scarborough, a frequent critic of the Trump administration, compared the president’s decision to an observation by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
“Henry Kissinger famously said that when you’re sitting in the White House and trying to make a decision on foreign policy, the possibility of war, you’re never handed a good decision and a bad decision, you’re handed two very difficult choices,” he said.
“And the president made that choice.”
WATCH:
Diplomacy was exhausted before the strikes occurred, Scarborough stated, pointing to calls by Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Both men were trying to arrange a meeting in Istanbul before Trump first told the world that he would decide “within two weeks” whether to strike Iran.
Talks broke down when Khamenei fled to an undisclosed location and stopped receiving electronic communications, Scarborough explained.
“Yeah, the diplomatic route ran out for the White House,” former BBC journalist Katty Kay agreed, the Daily Mail reported. “The military route became the possibility that previous presidents have ignored.”
The decision to bomb Iran led to a torrent of counterstrikes on Monday as Tehran launched at least six ballistic missiles toward a U.S. military base in Qatar. Although initial reports indicate the attack failed, American soldiers in the Middle East remain in a heightened state of alert this week.
Back home, far-left Democrats like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are attempting to galvanize public support behind a historic third impeachment of President Trump. They allege he acted unconstitutionally by not seeking approval from Congress before authorizing the strike.
That effort is going nowhere, according to a Democratic senator who declared the proposal dead on arrival with Republicans in control of both chambers.
