Maddow warns ‘even if the tail is not wagging the dog’ perception around globe will be Trump is bombing Syria as a distraction

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow gave an emotional response to President Donald Trump's Friday night announcement that the United States launched an attack on Syria.

"The president, speaking live from the White House, announcing new military strikes on Syria," Maddow explained at the end of President Trump's remarks.

"Point of personal privilege here just for a second," Maddow said, with a pause. "It is worth considering on a night like tonight that there are national security consequences to having a presidency that is as chaotic as Mr. Trump's presidency, a presidency that is as consumed by scandal and criminal intrigue as his presidency is."

"The strategic effect of that strike will be assessed by both our allies and our enemies," she explained. "Other countries and entities involved in the fight in Syria are considering their role in Syria are going to try to figure out how they're going to react to this U.S. strike."

"It will affect those other countries' view of this strike, it will affect their reaction to it," Maddow continued. "It will therefore affect the utility of this military strike, if the President of the United States is believed to have issued the order to launch this strike tonight -- even in part because people think he wanted to distract from a catastrophic domestic scandal that is blowing up at home at the same time."

"The perception that the president may have made these strikes in part because of scandal will affect the impact and the effectiveness of these military strikes," she continued. "Unavoidably."

"Even if the tail is not wagging the dog, even if you give the president every benefit of the doubt, even if his calculations about whether to launch this action against Syria tonight was taken with absolutely no regard for what else is going on in the president's life right now, what else is going on in the president's life right now, unavoidably creates a real perception around the globe that that may have been part of the motivation both for what he did and particularly for when he did it," Maddow concluded.

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