According to the panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," any political benefit Donald Trump might have derived in killing Iranian military leader Qassem Suleimani with a drone attack was frittered away when the White House allegedly lied about the reasons for the killing.
As host Joe Scarborough explained, the downfall of the White House story has been the ever-changing details that suggests officials are making it up as they go along.
Reacting to Defense Secretary Mark Esper's appearances on the Sunday cable shows where the best he could say was that President Trump "believed" multiple embassy attacks were planned -- and then he admitted he had not seen any intel to confirm that -- Scarborough stated, "In the end, killing of Suleimani, probably most influential military leader across the Middle East over the past 30 years, when that isn't enough, you had to make things up. Of course, they made things up from the very beginning: the attack was imminent. They were coming for us."
"Why do you send people on Sunday shows? It's not like everybody ever leaves and they're like, wow. That worked out well for us. Every week!" he continued.
"I should say, last weekend, you actually could tell from [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo's answers, that they were making up this stuff about him and Pompeo was having to push back and -- it became very obvious after his 14th interview that Sunday that there was nothing imminent about it," he continued. "And now we, of course, find out that, from the Sec Def that Donald Trump was making stuff up, yeah, they were going to attack 87 embassies -- no truth to it."
Deeper into the segment, the host showed polls that reveal that Americans overwhelmingly feel less safe since the killing as well as another one showing a majority feel the president made a mistake.
You can watch below:
