MSNBC's Joe Scarborough blasted Republican lawmakers for using the Ukraine crisis to score domestic political points on President Joe Biden.
Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf appeared Monday on "Morning Joe" to discuss Biden's ab-libbed comments on regime change in Russia, and he and Scarborough agreed that showing strength against Vladimir Putin was better than whatever Donald Trump displayed during his presidency.
"I think the message of the speech from beginning to end was of strength, and I also think that it was a speech that resonated not just in the context of Ukraine but in the context of a shift," Rothkopf said. "The United States and Europe and our allies are looking at Russia in terms of a long-term threat. They're not going to be satisfied simply to end this war, hopefully to win this war, but they're going to require that Russia stays where it is, that it stops its talk of aggression."
"I think, finally as to your first point about the incredible hypocrisy of the Republicans who have taken both sides of this issue, as they had so many others, that, you know, this dividing line between autocracy and democracy is not a remote foreign issue," Rothkopf added. "We are fighting that war right here, right now with people like Donald Trump and others in his party seeking to undermine American democracy and embrace hallmarks of authoritarian governments. so historical speech."
Scarborough contrasted that with some Trump allies who have been approvingly quoted by Russian media.
"Many of the Trumpists are actually having their words played on Russian television to, again, try to inspire the Russian people to keep killing more Ukrainians," Scarborough said. "It's not a good look, especially when many of the same people were the ones in the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party who celebrated Ronald Reagan's 'evil empire' speech, who celebrated Ronald Reagan joking and saying the bombing would begin in five minutes. Again, it is hypocrisy. They're not concerned about what is best for America, they're not concerned about what is best for democracy, they're not concerned about what is best for Western Civilization. They just want Joe Biden to fail or any Democrat to fail."
"You wonder how twisted somebody's worldview would be when we are in the middle of the most critical foreign policy challenge since the end of World War II," he added. "I don't know how you do it."
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