MSNBC's Morning Joe shreds Lindsey Graham's 'shameful' defense of Trump's Iran briefing

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough slammed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and other Senate Republicans for praising a national security briefing described by others as the worst they'd ever heard.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) were incensed by the Trump administration's "insulting and demeaning" Iran briefing, and the "Morning Joe" host slammed Graham for accusing the GOP pair of "empowering the enemy."

"Only in the age of Trump would actually reading the Constitution and believing Article I says, only in Donald Trump's Washington would a Republican senator call that empowering the enemy," Scarborough said. "Lindsey Graham's word about a fellow Republican, because he wanted to debate a strike, an airstrike, wanted to debate intel. Lindsey called that empowering the enemy and yet, it's Lindsey Graham and Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party who has been castigating and slandering the men and women of the FBI, CIA, NSA, you name it, every intel agency across Washington, D.C."

"It's hard to say that this is Lindsey Graham's most shameful performance," he added, "but I would say that accusing Mike Lee of empowering the Iranians because you want to actually defend the Constitution of the United States, that's up there."

Graham didn't just attack his fellow Republicans who were unsatisfied with the justification for assassinating Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, he praised President Donald Trump's strangely slurred speech about the escalating conflict.

"Lindsey Graham comparing Donald Trump's press conference yesterday to one of -- at least the Republicans believe, conservatives believe -- one of the great speeches in the second half of the 20th Century, one of the most significant, Ronald Reagan telling Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the wall," Scarborough said. "Does he need primary votes that badly?"