Scarborough rips Trump for putting military in an 'extraordinarily dangerous legal situation'
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Joe Scarborough
During U.S. President Donald Trump's first term, a combination of Democrats and traditional non-MAGA conservatives often attacked his America First foreign policy as dangerously "isolationist." The late conservative Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) believed that Trump was being manipulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Democratic former President Joe Biden considered Trump an existential threat to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Yet Trump, during his second presidency, is drawing vehement criticism from both Democrats and the non-MAGA right for his Venezuela policy — which includes a series of military strikes against Venezuelan boats that Trump claims were transporting illegal drugs to the United States and possible strikes in Venezuela itself.
One of those critics is MS NOW host and Never Trump conservative Joe Scarborough, a former GOP congressman.
On the Monday, December 1 broadcast of "Morning Joe," Scarborough and one of his guests — retired Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of U.S. Army Europe — attacked Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's Venezuela policy as a shoot-first/ask-questions-later approach that violates military protocols.
Scarborough told a panel that included Hertling, fellow "Morning Joe" host Mika Brzezinski, Axios' Jim VandeHei and former Associated Press (AP) reporter Jonathan Lemire that Trump is "accusing…. senators of treason, talking about their hanging, for simply going back and saying you don't have to follow illegal orders that would have you held responsible…. that would have you, in the end, found guilty for war crimes, or murder."
Trump and Hegseth, Scarborough warned, are getting the U.S. into an "extraordinarily dangerous legal situation" with Venezuela.
VandeHei commented, "There's a whole other layer that we haven't even talked about. This is: Why are we there in the first place? The (Trump) Administration has done a terrible job in explaining: Are we there for oil, are we there for strategic purposes? Are we there to truly stop drug smuggling? And if we are, is that really the best use of American military — to have our troops on a ship on the coast, targeting drug runners, maybe keeping a little bit of cocaine, or keeping a little bit of drugs, from getting into the U.S.?"
The Axios reporter added, "It's not going to have any effect whatsoever on the amount of drug use or what's getting shipped in into America. And so, that piece…. has been baffling to a lot of Republicans."