MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough defends Trump’s strikes on Iran

MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough on Monday defended President Trump’s strikes on Iran, arguing that any past president or even Hillary Clinton would have “felt compelled to take that strike.”

Trump over the weekend announced that the US had dropped bunker buster bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles on three key Iranian nuclear sites – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – in what he called a “spectacular military success.”

The “Morning Joe” host said he’s not “championing either side,” but argued that many past presidents – and even former Democratic nominee and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – likely would have made the same decision from the Oval Office.

“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 said.

“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 stuck with two difficult options.

“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 said.

The Republican congressman-turned-leftist news anchor has heavily criticized the Trump administration, slamming Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts, and stood by former president Joe Biden, claiming he was at his best in March 2024 when later reports alleged mental decline.

But Scarborough faced outrage from viewers last year when he and Mika Brzezinski, his “Morning Joe” co-host and wife, visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago property.

Speaking on “Morning Joe,” Washington Post columnist David Ignatius agreed with Scarborough’s argument that Trump was not handed any easy options.

“His choices were debased at the moment he had to make the decision,” Ignatius said.

He added that Trump inherited the battle plan from three previous presidents who considered the exact same bombing but “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 said. 

“The problem is, on that different terrain we just don’t know what’s ahead.”