MS NOW's Joe Scarborough was incredulous as one of his guests offered to defend Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's handling of the Iran war.
The "Morning Joe" host mocked Hegseth for boasting "we negotiate with bombs" during an Oval Office event with President Donald Trump, and Scarborough said he doesn't understand what the 79-year-old commander in chief sees in his Pentagon chief.
"It's amazing to us that Donald Trump, who is worried about, especially in military, he likes people that fit the part, that are from central casting, that somebody who is so wildly out of step with what his secretary of defense looks like at a time of war would still be there," Scarborough said.
The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg stepped up to defend Hegseth on the one-year anniversary of his bombshell report on how he was inadvertently added to a Signal chat where the defense secretary discussed sensitive war planning in Yemen with top-ranking Trump administration officials, and Scarborough erupted in laughter.
"Oh, come on!" Scarborough exclaimed. "I don't see it."
"Okay," added co-host Mika Brzezinski. "Let's go – come on. I want to hear this."
Goldberg also broke into laughter along with the other panelists on the set, but he composed himself to begin his promised defense.
"If he hadn't said it the way he said it, which is, of course, a big caveat, right?" Goldberg said. "The point is, it's – there's a good cop and there's a bad cop, and Hegseth said we are going to degrade your missile capability and your defensive capability in your navy until such time as you come ready to negotiate a deal with my president over here."
"It didn't sound like that," interjected Brzezinski.
"Yes, I mean, there's a big caveat, that's not what it sounded like," Goldberg conceded.
"Is Pete Hegseth one of your sources, Jeffrey?" Scarborough teased. "Come on! This is like we have Bob Woodward on it. We can always tell when he's writing a book about somebody because he would suddenly go soft."
"Also, everything about him, the hair, the makeup – I love his hair and makeup," Goldberg said, joining in the ridicule of the former Fox News host. "No, no, no – I mean, there is a point in explaining, and explaining to the Iranians, look, if your posture is not amenable to the president, I'm here, I am the Defense Department. Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff can go negotiate with you. I'm going to pound you into submission. That is the policy, after all. It just sounds absurd when he does his macho thing."
