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Expert lists 4 reasons 'moron' Trump can't save US economy with Venezuelan oil

Bulwark economics editor Catherine Rampell says Trump’s recent invasion of Venezuela is “unlikely to be a good deal for U.S. taxpayers or U.S. companies.”

“Trump … invaded Venezuela because he only believes in war for profit, and for years has been saying U.S. military strategy should be guided by the opportunity to make money by seizing other countries’ natural resources,” Rampell wrote. “But Trump is also notoriously a moron who does zero homework.”

There are four main reasons Trump’s invasion will likely backfire, she said, beginning with the global glut of oil that Trump wants to choke further with even more Venezuelan crude.

“The world is … experiencing oversupply right now, which drove prices down all of last year,” Rampell said. “The annual average inflation-adjusted price of Brent crude oil last year was $69 per barrel, which is the lowest since 2020 — when the pandemic hit and demand for fuel cratered. None of this particularly makes companies anywhere want to expand production a lot, since that would bring prices down further.”

Trump campaigned on ‘drill, baby, drill,’ but former senior U.S. economist at BP Mark Finley told Rampell that the United States “can’t have ‘drill, baby, drill’ and low oil prices.”

Second, there’s the nature of Venezuelan oil itself.

On one hand, Venezuela's claim of “300 billion barrels [of oil]” appears to have been exaggerated or, worse, fabricated by the Venezuelan government to impress markets." Rampell also pointed out that the quality of that oil is “heavy, sticky, dense, highly sulfuric and expensive to extract.”

“That’s among the reasons that the country currently accounts for under 1 percent of global oil production,” said Rampell, and the decaying infrastructure and government dysfunction will make processing it no easier, or cheap. Many oil companies won’t want to touch it — possibly for years.

Thirdly, Venezuela’s political instability and its history of seizing international oil companies’ assets and investments also presents an obstacle. Rampell questioned what profitable oil company would want to throw good money after bad if the government is likely to decide to snatch it once more.

When grouping those factors with Trump’s inability to generate real money for anybody other than himself and his family, Rampell asserted there was a fourth reason international oil producers may stall their investments in Trump’s new broken toy of a nation, according to Rampell.

“While Trump can bully companies into making investments that lack financial sense, he can’t actually bully those investments into profitability,” said Rampell.

Fossil fuel companies might “thread the needle” and appease Trump while not filling their tankers with red ink” by promising “a bunch of vague investments that they don’t really intend to deliver,” said Rampell. “Companies in other industries and countries have already modeled this approach.”

“The upshot is that if Trump believes invading Venezuela to seize its oil was a good investment, then he got rolled,” Rampell said. “And he may well get rolled again soon.”

Read the Bulwark report at this link.

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Trump and his DOJ could still face felony charges after he leaves office: ex-US attorney

Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade says special prosecutor Jack Smith left the door open for future prosecution of President Donald Trump on his way out.

McQuade said Smith deftly dismissed his own brewing case against Trump’s election interference investigation “without prejudice,” meaning it can be brought again by a new Justice Department in 2029 when Trump leaves office.

Critics say Trump’s prosecution for election interference creeped along under overly cautious former U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland, giving Trump the opportunity to win election before Smith could complete his case and present it to a grand jury. After Trump’s four years are up, his case would technically be beyond the statute of limitations. However, McQuade said Trump’s four years as president could mark a save point for the case, and his departure could restart the timer on that deadline.

“There is an argument that the statute is tolled during a period when charges cannot be brought. And since it is the position of the Justice Department, and some believe, required by the Constitution, that a sitting president cannot be charged, there's an argument that these four years should be tolled in the statute of limitations allowing that case to be resuscitated once Donald Trump leaves office," she said.

“So in theory, if Trump leaves office, then another special counsel, or if Jack Smith was brought back, this could get restarted,” asked MS NOW host Katy Tur. “Would you expect that to go to the Supreme Court?”

McQuade agreed, but she added that Smith acted to insulate much of the case for Supreme court review.

“I mean, one of the things that Smith did, of course, was to supersede his indictment and to remove from that case any conduct that he believed was covered by the Supreme Court's immunity decision in July of 2024. Not everything he did there was covered by immunity — only that which was within the scope of his constitutional duties. Many of the allegations were charged against Donald Trump in his capacity as a candidate, not as the sitting president, who really doesn't have a formal role to play in elections.”

“It was never adjudicated, so it could be resuscitated in January of 2029,” McQuade said, while adding a warning that any attempts by the Trump administration to burn evidence in his oen case while he’s in power could bring down its own prosecution and penalties.

“Destruction of evidence can be treated as obstruction of justice,” McQuade said. “ … If somebody were to destroy them for the purpose of ending any sort of investigation to come, I would imagine there could be potential obstruction of justice charges for those people.”

Meanwhile the destruction could be futile because witness testimpny can be reclaimed with follow-up interviews, and incriminating text messages, phone records and bank records can be replicated by going back to the original source.

Watch McQuade's segment below:

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Trump's Venezuelan invasion a 'risky political gambit': retired general

Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey warned that regime change is risky business — even for a competent president.

President Donald Trump announced in a social media post early Saturday morning that the United States has carried out a “large scale strike” on Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and flying them out of the country. The Washington Post reports “explosions were heard and smoke could be seen rising in multiple locations across Caracas in the early morning, including at key military facilities, and aircraft were seen flying over the Venezuelan capital.”

McCaffrey called the military operation “audacious and complex and successful” in that the U.S. successfully seized the head of state and his wife in the middle of a city of 3 million people and flew them out.”

He added that Maduro was already an indicted drug cartel member along with 14 of his senior associates, but he reasoned there was no indication the nation was on its way to democracy.

“There’s no question he was a repressive despot,” McCaffrey said. “Seven million Venezuelans have walked out of the country, literally starving, even though it’s one of the most wealthy nations on the planet in terms of resources. Did they have to kill a bunch of Cuban intel guys who undoubtedly were guarding Maduro? More to come. But the larger question is … the president of Venezuela now is Vice President [Delcy] Rodríguez. The minister of defense has been seen in public. The minister of the interior has been seen in public, but there’s no indication yet of some wholescale march to democracy.”

“That’s not to say that the CIA may not indeed be now in the process of organizing the Venezuelan armed forces to turn against a regime of political leadership. I imagine they’re in there with bribery and offers and potential rewards in the next government so it may turn out well, but no one knows how this is gonna end up. So, it’s a very risky political gambit the president has embarked on.”

Republicans like Trump have experience with failed regime change, most notably the failed nation building of Iraq and Afghanistan in the aftermath of the U.S. War on Terror initiated by former president George W. Bush. That 20-year campaign has so far cost he U.S. upwards of $8 trillion, according to researchers at Brown University.

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'Losing his step': Conservative says 'doddering' Trump 'not the man he used to be'

Conservative podcaster and columnist Matt Lewis says President Donald Trump appears to be packing on years abnormally fast, and it’s showing in his behavior.

“Donald Trump clearly aged this year. And part of that is we can no longer compare him to Biden,” said Lewis, speaking with Never Trump conservative Charlie Sykes on Sykes’ Substack podcast. “ … In people’s minds you could contrast Trump against Biden and it wasn’t favorable to Biden. Biden seemed doddering and slow, whereas Trump was aged but he had a weird crazed manic energy. Well, Biden is no longer part of the picture and Trump is nothing but getting older and it’s very clear that he is losing his step and he’s not the man he used to be.”

Lewis said Trump’s shuffling stumbles were apparent with the president falling asleep at public meetings and events, but also with his handlers’ removing him from exposing him less to the public.

“He’s having fewer and fewer of these rallies,” said the former Daily Caller writer. “If you look at 2025 he has not been out amongst the people … where he would feed off the crowd’s energy and test concepts. Instead, he’s surrounded by billionaires and weird ideologues.”

“His address to the nation was a complete fiasco,” said Sykes, arguing in favor of fewer public appearances still.

“Trump says the most vile, insulting things on a regular basis. He makes fun of disabled people. He’s insulting women, and yet one of those moments that broke through was when he was mocking [Hollywood director] Rob Reinder and his wife, and that cut through the popular culture,” Sykes continued. “I think people just like Rob Reiner movies. Not everybody is political and not everybody sees everything through politics. I’m not sure if it was the drip, drip, drip cumulative effect or was it a ‘holy sh——. What is wrong with this guy’ thing?”

“After four years of watching Sleepy Joe Biden to watch sleep Donald trump is one of the paradoxes of the year that he’s supposed to be this superman who’s falling asleep,” Sykes said. “The guy is clearly losing a couple of steps and he’s not going to get better over the next three years.”

Watch the full Charlie Sykes podcast at this link.

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Trump is 'declining noticeably' and could soon have a 'health event': ex-RNC spokesman

The staff at The Bulwark took inventory on predictions made as President Donald Trump muscled his way back into the White House last year. Some forecasts — such as Trump having the proper judgment to fire the worst of his bumbling staff — fell flat as Americans learned Trump’s mental state was a lower bar than predicted.

Others, however, panned out as expected.

“My dark horse prediction for 2025 is that Donald Trump has a health event,” said Bulwark podcaster Tim Miller. “And I think that this is inevitable based on the actuarial tables to happen during his presidency, because … Donald Trump's machismo and his strength is such an important part of his political brand.”

Bulwark columnist Mona Charen, acting as judge for Bulwark’s prediction, said Miller did not foresee the administration’s talent for covering up the president’s health, however.

“He's declining noticeably,” said Charen. “His health is declining. That's clear. He's got those things on his hands. He's stumbling a bit. He's falling asleep. But that's not a health event.”

Bulwark Managing Editor Sam Stein disagreed, however, pointing out that its not Miller’s fault the administration is a brick wall on the president’s failing vigor.

“I would give Tim at least one point,” said Stein. “I think with the hand stuff, there's something up there. And there's all this question about why he had an MRI. They're not really being forthcoming about it. We don't know. And because it's so clouded in uncertainty, I feel like that deserves at least one point. So, we have a little bit of a disagreement.”

Both “Judge” Stein and Charen ruled in favor of Bulwark writer Will Saletan, whose dark horse prediction for 2025 was that Donald Trump was going to pardon New York Mayor Eric Adams.

“Why would Donald Trump pardon a Democrat? The reason is Donald Trump is not fundamentally a Republican. Donald Trump is fundamentally a criminal,” said Saletan a year ago. “And so he loves white collar criminals like himself. … [H]e sympathizes with guys who have been convicted by law enforcement, by the justice system.”

Stein and Charen disagreed on the semantics of the pardon, however, seeing as how Trump did not pardon Adams but merely instructed his politicized DOJ to drop its corruption case against the mayor.”

The judges also awarded top points to Bulwark White House Correspondent Andrew Egger for correctly predicting “more MAGA infighting” in 2025.

“I actually had forgotten about Egger, so he also gets a five,” said Charen, referencing the current war underway between antisemitic and pro-Israel factions duking it out over the Heritage Foundation’s embrace of MAGA influencer and white nationalist Nick Fuentes and the people who give Fuentes a platform.

There’s also division in the MAGA ranks over Trump’s foot-dragging on the release of the files of convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, wherein Trump’s name is generously peppered. That division appears to be between young MAGA influencers and aging Fox News elites.

“Completely spot on,” agreed Stein. “I mean, not exactly the craziest prediction — he didn't really walk out [on a limb] with that one. But I think the actual magnitude of the infighting is much bigger than I actually expected. So, Egger gets five. And everyone knows I'm loathe to give Egger any credit whatsoever. So, this is a real five.”

Watch the Bulwark podcast at this link.

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Conservative suggests backup plan to keep Trump 'successfully flattered'

Columnist David Mastio can’t gauge the specific inflation at your local grocery store, but he is confident President Donald Trump’s “flattery inflation is on the rise.”

On Friday, FIFA president Gianni Infantino designated Donald Trump the orgaization’s inaugural "FIFA Peace Prize" winner on stage with a gold medal “for Trump to don and a trophy of golden hands holding up the world for his Oval Office mantel,” Mastio told the Kansas City Star. Fox hosts remain sensitive to the suggestion that the organization created the prize to look like Trump's ever-coveted Nobel Peace Prize on purpose.

“That should keep Trumpian threats to remove World Cup games from “Democrat-run” cities on the back burner for now, but summer 2026 when the games will come to the Democrat-run Kansas City is a long way from now,” Mastio warned. “Maybe Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas should a fire up a backup plan in case flattery inflation continues to run amok in Washington and we need to fend off a resurgence of threats to move the games the city has spent so much time, effort and money preparing for.”

Mastio also suggested city leaders throw out all the promotional signage and rename Kansas City’s FIFA World Cup as the “Kansas City FIFA World Cup presented to you by Peace Prize-winner Donald Trump.”

“His picture could be added to bus wraps, banners and billboards all with a proliferation of gold braid, heavy on the gold,” Mastio added. “For the games, the balls could be remade with one of the Pentagon thingies emblazoned with a sparkly gold T. Replicas would sell out because what could be more satisfying than taking a Trump ball to your backyard and giving it a good kick the way some of us would like to do.”

Additionally, Mastio noted that when Trump has been successfully flattered he is prone to “conceding all kinds of important points in negotiations,” such as when he announced on the FIFA stage that soccer had a better claim on the name “football” than that game played by the Kansas City Chiefs.

“Maybe Clark Hunt could get the owners of the National Football League to rename the Super Bowl as the ‘Trump Bowl’ in an effort to keep their hold on the name ‘football’ that Trump seems so keen to give away,” Mastio said.

“For my part, I think I will write a card to The Donald telling him that I’ll name my next child Trump,” Mastio said. “That makes about as much sense as a FIFA Peace Prize.”

Read the Kansas City report at this link.

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'Lot of heartburn in the Pentagon' over double-tap blame game: national security reporter

CNN National Security correspondent Natasha Bertrand reports the Trump administration is causing headache with its back and forth over who is responsible for a deadly double strike that destroyed a Caribbean boat and then killed its stricken passengers floating in the water.

“[T]here is a lot of heartburn in the Pentagon right now amongst officials who are saying, ‘how is [Secretary of Defense Pete] Hegseth shifting entirely the blame to [Navy Adm. Frank] Bradley… while at the same time he's saying that he has his back?’ Clearly he's trying to shift responsibility for the entire strike to him.”

Former military officials are saying Bradley would be court martialed “under normal circumstances” for ordering strikes against helpless swimmers after an initial strike destroyed their boat.

“I think he's very much trying to have this both ways,” Bertrand told CNN anchor Dana Bash. “On the one hand, [Hegseth] is saying that we fully support what these commanders are doing. On the other hand, he's saying that we're going to keep striking narco-terrorists and put them at the bottom of the ocean. But also, this was Admiral Bradley’s decision. He's the one that made this decision on September 2nd to kill the survivors of that of that strike.”

This, said Bertrand, suggests “a little bit of vulnerability’ on the part of both Hegseth and the Trump administration.

“The reality is that there are serious questions about why they made that decision to kill survivors of that first strike and ultimately why they then changed course and began repatriating survivors after that first strike,” she said. “Was there a recognition there by lawyers, perhaps, that, ‘hey, maybe this is not going to be good for us in the future?’

Heads are also spinning because White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated multiple times that ultimately, Hegseth and Donald Trump are the ones who make all the decisions about the operations — but, at the same time, she and Hegseth both say Bradley was in charge of this particular operation, and ordered that second strike that killed the survivors.

“So while Pete Hegseth … said, ‘kill them all’ it was Admiral Bradley, according to the Pentagon, who then made the decision,” said Betrand. “And I think that there's a lot of exploiting this nuance and saying that because Hegseth didn't necessarily order that second strike to kill the survivors, … then that kind of absolves him of all culpability in this.”

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Trump stuck with his economy for the midterms: economist

Georgetown University School of Business Senior Fellow Robert J. Shapiro says President Donald Trump likely won’t be fixing his “affordability” conundrum in time to save himself or his Republican Party.

“There’s little the government can do about either in time for the 2026 midterms, and even the 2028 presidential election. Exacerbating matters, the president and Congress insist on making it worse," Shapiro told Washington Monthly. “President Donald Trump famously promised to lower prices ‘on Day One’ in his 2024 campaign. That was bluster, of course…. Yet he’s dead set against the standard way to do it — keeping interest rates elevated to slow demand.”

The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates 11 times under former president Joe Biden, and it slowed inflation from 9 percent to 2.9 percent.

But cutting rates alone won’t satisfy voters because inflation isn’t going anywhere soon. Shapiro said overall prices in America rose 25 percent, including 25 percent increases for eggs, pork, milk, cars and trucks; 30 or 31 percent increases for housing, rent, food overall, and bread; 37 percent increases for electricity; and 55 percent increases for beef.

“The government can make some purchases more affordable by subsidizing them, as it often does for health care, energy, and food. Yet Trump and Congressional Republicans have taken aim at those subsidies, making healthcare less affordable by cutting Medicaid and Obamacare supports, making food less affordable by cutting SNAP benefits, and making energy less affordable by cutting support for wind and solar energy,” Shapiro said, adding that Trump’s “mindless tariff policies have increased prices on thousands of products.

But the other half of Trump’s affordability conundrum is income, primarily because the median income of Americans, after inflation, has been stuck since 2019, even as productivity increased 10.4 percent since then. Worse, while most Americans’ earnings after inflation virtually stagnated from 2019 to 2024, sources of income for the wealthy from assets are exploding.

The Treasury reports that capital income in 2024 totaled $4.5 trillion, and that the bottom 50 percent of Americans received just 2.5 percent of it. The top 10 percent pocketed 88 percent of that fast-rising capital income, including 52 percent ($2.3 trillion) for the top 1 percent and 32 percent ($1.4 trillion) for the top one-tenth of 1 percent.

“The uncomfortable irony is that most of the capital income came from businesses that increased their labor productivity by an average of 10.4 percent,” Shapiro said. “Yet most of it did not go into people’s earnings but into capital payments to owners and shareholders.”

And Trump keeps compounding his economic malpractice.

“His tariffs and subsidy cuts not only make America less affordable for most people; they also finance $1 trillion in tax cuts for the sliver of people who collect most of the fast-rising capital income,” Shapiro said.

Former President Bill Clinton, by comparison, took a different approach that Trump can’t seem to manage, Shapiro said.

“I was an architect of Bill Clinton’s economic program for ordinary people that produced the 1990s boom, which included market-based reforms and government investments,” said Shapiro.

When the economy shifts, new politics usually follow, but the “hollowness and failures of rightwing populism under Trump” is leaving the door is “wide open for Democrats to champion populism from the left.”

Read the Washington Monthly report at this link.

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Prosecutor warns Trump 'handing Democrats' his articles of impeachment

Former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has no love for the “craven video” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and five Democrats released to the public advising military members to ignore illegal orders. But he said President Donald Trump’s executive power abuses in reacting to it represent a whole “new level” of threat.

McCarthy tells the National Review that he partially blames Democrats for Trump ordering the Pentagon to demote Kelly and cut his benefits because “Kelly knows, when Democrats poke another hole in another norm, the president’s MO is to drive a truck through it.”

The author and National Review Institute senior fellow also notes Trump is howling “sedition” like he knows what it means.

“What is truly bizarre is to find the president, who likes to remind us that he is the nation’s chief law enforcement official, grossly misstating the law while claiming that the ‘Seditionist Six’ are dangerously misstating the law (when in fact they’ve accurately stated the law),” McCarthy said. “As one of the few current or former prosecutors in the United States to have actually charged and convicted people for seditious conspiracy, I’m here to tell you that the heart of any sedition offense is the use of force against the nation or its government.”

Section 2384 of federal criminal law defines the crime as conspiring to levy war against the United States or to forcibly (1) destroy the government, (2) prevent execution of the laws, or (3) seize government property. The military law definition, said McCarthy, is even more narrow: One must join in the creation of a “revolt, violence, or other disturbance against” government authority, “with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of” that authority.

“Nothing on the Democrats’ video comes close to urging or promoting violence. Indeed, in comparison to Trump’s fiery Ellipse speech prior to the Capitol riot … the lawmakers’ video is vanilla,” said McCarthy. “If Kelly had been urging his fellow military members to disobey lawful orders, that would be insubordination, not sedition. But he wasn’t.”

“As the president watches his poll numbers plummet, it either doesn’t dawn on him or he just doesn’t care that he is in office, in part, because the voting public was unnerved by Democratic lawfare.” Said McCarthy. “Clearly, Trump’s statist mismanagement of the economy is his biggest problem, as it was Biden’s. But lawfare … is a bigger problem for Trump.”

“Trump and his minions revel in lawfare,” said McCarthy, which “further normalizes the noxious practice, potentially entrenching it.”

“Trump is also handing Democrats the articles of impeachment they will swiftly enact if, as seems increasingly likely, his erratic governance hands them back the House next year — and maybe even the Senate the way things are going,” McCarthy warned. “… Incorporating the Pentagon into the lawfare campaign against political enemies raises the abuse of executive power to a new level.”

“For the president to begin pulling the military he commands into his ongoing, punitive use of government processes against his partisan opponents is a red line,” said McCarthy. “Justice Department lawfare is bad, but the courts are equipped to handle it. Politicization of the military is a different, more threatening beast.”

Read the National Review report at this link.

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AG's 'dramatic u-turn' proves DOJ now fully owned by Trump: analyst

MS NOW producer Steve Benen argues Attorney General Pam Bondi’s reason for re-opening a case she personally closed could not be more obvious, or embarrassing.

“Maybe the attorney general wasn’t comfortable saying ‘I do whatever Trump tells me to do, regardless of merit’ during an on-camera press conference,” Benen said.

In July, Bondi’s very own Justice Department released a joint statement with the FBI declaring that after “an exhaustive review” of “investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein,” investigators had concluded the case closed. Based on all of the available information, Benen said the two departments agreed there was nothing to justify further inquiries into any of Epstein’s alleged connections or co-conspirators.

But last week, Benen said Bondi made “a dramatic U-turn,” reopening the case and tapping a federal prosecutor to continue the investigation that she had declared dead four months ago.

When asked by a reporter why she was rekindling the cold investigation Bondi replied, “Information. There’s information that’s new information, additional information.”

“As for what ‘information’ she was referring to, neither Bondi nor Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche would say,” Benen said.

“It’s certainly possible that the Justice Department’s and the FBI’s ‘exhaustive review’ missed important detail, which emerged four months later, but there’s a more logical explanation,” Benen said, and he cited President Donald Trump personally directing the Justice Department and the FBI to launch a new investigation into the case of the convicted sex offender and target it at Democrats.

“I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Four hours later, Bondi did as she was told, discarding her own declarations from the summer,” said Benen.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Bondi wrote in a post on X that included a screenshot of Trump’s request.

“The new line is that the series of events is merely coincidental. Sure, the president who has effectively taken control of the Justice Department barked a foolish order. And sure, his loyalist AG acted four hours later. But what really happened, according to Bondi, is that officials just happened to learn of new ‘information’ she wasn’t at liberty to share at the same time as Trump published a silly tweet telling the DOJ what to do,” Benen said.

Read the full MS NOW report at this link.

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'A bone saw happened': Morning Joe trashes Trump’s defense of Saudi prince

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough obliterated President Donald Trump’s Tuesday defense of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

While meeting with the Saudi leader, Trump spoke with journalists in the Oval Office. And one reporter asked about the October 2018 murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed by Salman’s henchmen at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey as his unsuspecting girlfriend waited outside.

The Turkish government had secretly bugged the consulate and Khashoggi's final moments were captured in audio recordings, transcripts of which were subsequently made public.

Despite the facts, Trump was dismissive of the assassination.

“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,” Trump told the reporter. “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.” He then added that the crown prince “knew nothing about it,” contradicting U.S. intelligence.

Scarborough was infuriated by the soppy rationalization.

“Now get this, get this, get this: He's sitting next to a man who was responsible for the sawing up of a reporter, and then he calls an ABC news supporter, a reporter in subordinate. Think about that," Scarborough said.

“Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire was similarly horrified.

“There was a time when the American president, whoever it was, no matter which party, would try to be an example for the rest of the world in terms of human rights, in terms of freedom of the press. And that is something that this president has never been interested in doing,” Lemire said. “He's cozying up to power authoritarians and the like. And yesterday, his response to that ABC reporter was, as noted, ‘things happen.’ A bone saw happened. That's what happened to Jamal Khashoggi. He was chopped up with a bone saw with at least the knowledge and perhaps at the instruction of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. [Trump] then went went on to say, there's ‘some people who didn't like Jamal Khashoggi,’ suggesting that maybe he had it coming, that some people disagreed with him.”

“And then to set him at another opulent state dinner last night, described as the glitziest event that he has thrown for any leader so far this year, the most lavish event the White House has held so far this year. [And all] in the honor of, of MBSm” Lemire continued. “… [A]gain, this president is using a moment with the eyes of the world on him to turn away from what would be considered traditional values of the office.”

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