MSNBC analyst scalds 'arsonist' Trump: The president has turned women and men against each other
MSNBC's Mike Barnicle believes President Donald Trump is headed toward re-election -- but he's worried there might not be much left to govern at that point.
The "Morning Joe" contributor said Trump was deepening partisan differences, exploiting regional rivalries and personally attacking his enemies, and he fears the corrosive damage a president can do with those assaults.
"What is happening to this country when we have a president of the United States who last night goes to Tennessee or Mississippi, but he's going to a couple of other states this week, a president of the United States who, in the midst of all these clamorous events going on in this country, takes to the country like an arsonist to burn down another political party, to vilify people individually," Barnicle said.
The political analyst said Trump had splintered the U.S. along a number of fault lines, and he's not optimistic that it can be put back together.
"As a country now where it's no longer Democrats vs. Republicans, it's now coastals vs. the inner country," he said. "It's obviously liberals vs. conservatives. But now we've taken another step. It's now women vs. men, and all of it is fed by the president of the United States."
Barnicle said he'd never seen the country in such bad shape, and he feared for the future.
"I don't want a president who literally takes to the country to twist and divide, who takes the truth and scorns it, who takes individuals and burns them at the stake because they happen to be Democrat or happen to oppose him," Barnicle said. "That's not the country I want."