MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Republicans who are calling Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley a traitor -- and revealed the real reason they're angry at the four-star general.
The White House is defending Milley against Republican criticism for reportedly communicating with his Chinese counterpart in the waning days of Donald Trump's administration, when he conducted backchannel communications to prevent a military strike that neither side wanted, and the "Morning Joe" host again called out GOP hypocrisy.
"Oh, what idiots," Scarborough said. "We explained how this happened during the Nixon administration, 1973, 1974, [then-Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger had to step in at one point when [President Richard] Nixon was doing really badly during 1973, Arab-Israeli war, and tell the prime minister of Great Britain that Nixon wasn't, couldn't talk, he was busy. Also happened, though, time and again when you could talk about when Nixon was president there were assurances going from that administration to leaders across the world -- everything's fine. This, yeah, and so after Jan. 6, something that had to be done."
Scarborough said Americans should want their top military leaders working to ensure war didn't break out by mistake during a period of domestic turmoil or when the president was not well, but he suspects conservatives are still angry at Milley for another reason.
"They're little snowflakes that melted when Gen. Milley went to the Hill and actually said he read a book on critical race [theory] -- they just melted," Scarborough said. "These little snowflakes so delicate and so pure, they're so natural and their mothers told them and their fathers told them, every one of you, every one of you is separate and different, there's no one snowflake like another. Yet all of these snowflakes on the Republican side, they're alike in one way. They're all melting because Gen. Milley said the words 'critical race theory' and said, yeah, I've read about it, good to know that -- but Marxism! -- I've read about it, and they still, they're still in a freak-out mode, and here this guy takes steps to defend America, to let China know that we're just fine, don't take advantage of this situation, and now they're saying he's treasonist?"
Republicans are still mad that Milley dealt a blow to their midterm election strategy to stir up anger and resentment about anti-racism lessons in school.
"Critical race theory -- they can't get past it, that's what they're running on next year," he said. "Once he did that, he stepped from their tribe to another tribe."
"He never intervened," Scarborough added. "They weren't around the table and Donald Trump didn't say, hey, let's bomb China, [and he said] I'm not going to do that. He just made a phone call, he just said, listen, don't take advantage of the United States, don't even think about it. If you do, you'll be sorry. So it wasn't really intervening and they're still melting down. He left the tribe. Yeah, so now let's accuse him of treason for eating a jelly doughnut and having some of the jelly drop on some of his medals."