Joe Scarborough Warns Against Rushing Iran War Exit Before Midterms in Jab at Fox News Host

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough pushed back against demands to wind down the war with Iran before November’s midterm elections, warning against allowing electoral politics to shape national security strategy after Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned President Donald Trump that “the clock is ticking” to end the conflict.

Speaking on MS NOW’s Morning Joe on Tuesday, Scarborough rolled back Ingraham’s comments, made on her Monday night show.

Ingraham told viewers that “the clock is ticking for President Trump to get out of this war before voters head to the polls,” arguing that Republicans “cannot let this become an endless distraction, especially if they want to win in November.”

After opening with the clip, the host cut in: “That’s some Fox News analysis of the political cost for Donald Trump and the Republican Party [over] the ongoing war in Iran.”

“Fascinating, if you listen to them talking about politics,” he continued. “And it’s, of course, something that the Iranians always depend on. They depend on Americans being strapped down to elections coming up that create false deadlines, that put us in a weak place to negotiate so we always have to take a soft, weak, tepid line.”

Drawing a comparison to the 1980 hostage crisis, he added: “Jimmy Carter had a hanging over him in the 1980 election against Ronald Reagan, so the Iranians knew time and time again they could take advantage of that weakness.”

Scarborough also criticized what he described as the Trump administration’s previous diplomatic approach toward Tehran, saying: “We tried to bribe them, make no mistake of it, the Trump administration tried to bribe Iran with $500 billion, after worrying about $1 billion or $2 billion of cash on pallets [delivered to Iran by former President Barack Obama].”

He continued: “The Trump administration tried to bribe Iran to the tune of $500 billion, half $1 trillion – that was more than Kaiser Wilhelm II had to pay for Germany after World War I.”

While reiterating his long-held opposition to entering the conflict, Scarborough argued the U.S. should not allow election pressures to dictate its exit strategy: “Far be it for me to be the guy that’s talking about wanting to be in forever wars, I most certainly do not.”

“In fact, we were very clear, I was very clear that I thought going into Iran was a mistake, but just as that was a terrible mistake,” he said. “We can’t make another terrible mistake on how we get out of Iran.”

He added that “it would be a nightmare to cave to a terror state for political reasons.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

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