MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough on Monday defended President Trump’s strikes on Iran, arguing that any previous president and even Hillary Clinton would have “felt compelled to take that strike.”
Trump over the weekend introduced that the US had dropped bunker buster bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles on three key Iranian nuclear websites – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – in what he referred to as a “spectacular military success.”
The “Morning Joe” host mentioned he’s not “championing either side,” however argued that many previous presidents – and even former Democratic nominee and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – possible would have made the identical determination from the Oval Workplace.
“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,” Scarborough mentioned.
“What would Monday look like if he hadn’t have moved? If Iran wasn’t already at 60% [enrichment of uranium] and an ability to create nuclear weapons in a short matter of time, right?” the host added.
Scarborough quoted Henry Kissinger to argue that Trump was caught with two troublesome choices.
“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. And the president made that choice,” Scarborough mentioned.
The Republican congressman-turned-leftist information anchor has closely criticized the Trump administration, slamming Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts, and stood by former president Joe Biden, claiming he was at his greatest in March 2024 when later stories alleged psychological decline.
However Scarborough confronted outrage from viewers final yr when he and Mika Brzezinski, his “Morning Joe” co-host and spouse, visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property.
Talking on “Morning Joe,” Washington Publish columnist David Ignatius agreed with Scarborough’s argument that Trump was not handed any straightforward choices.
“His choices were debased at the moment he had to make the decision,” Ignatius mentioned.
He added that Trump inherited the battle plan from three earlier presidents who thought of the very same bombing however “pulled back because of the uncertainties associated with the action.”
“If President Trump decided last Friday there is no chance that the negotiated settlement that I want to resolve this is going to work…he, in a sense, did have no choice but to move it onto a different terrain,” Ignatius mentioned.
“The problem is, on that different terrain we just don’t know what’s ahead.”
