Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia and MSNBC foreign policy contributor Evelyn Farkas said on Friday that President Donald Trump is so ignorant of American history that in his comments to the press on Thursday, he sided with the Soviet Union over the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.
Host Hallie Jackson noted that the president's comments had caused outrage in Afghanistan, reading from a blistering statement that country's foreign minister had released on Twitter setting Trump straight, and asked what the impact on "on-the-ground operations" would be.
"This one was appalling, it was almost on the level of Helsinki," replied Farkas, who was visibly angry. "I'm sure we will hear from President Carter, who is still alive and was our president at the time that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up a communist regime that had conducted a coup." But Farkas wasn't done and continued to correct the record.
"You might remember one of the few times the United States boycotted the Olympics, in 1980, was because of that invasion," she said. "The rest is history, but unfortunately our president got it wrong."
Farkas added that Trump's inaccurate comments would likely have no impact on "on-the-ground operations," but would signal to troops serving in that war-torn country "that our president doesn't know the history at all."
"Once again, he's doing this really odd and alarming thing of almost siding with not only Russia, but the Soviet Union, against America and America history and American values," she said. "So it's appalling."
Watch the video below.
