Joe Scarborough Warns Trump’s Apparent ‘Step Back From the Brink’ Might Be Wider Play: ‘Time for Iran to Duck?’

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough warned that President Donald Trump’s apparent “step back from the brink” in postponing planned U.S. strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure Monday may be part of a wider play to take the regime by surprise, even as he noted the de-escalation had come at a key moment.

The show’s coverage of a deadly collision between a passenger jet and fire truck at LaGuardia airport was brought abruptly to a halt on Monday morning when the Morning Joe crew pivoted to a Truth Social post issued by the president.

Trump announced that the U.S. and Iran had held “PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS” over the past two days on a potential “TOTAL” end to “HOSTILITIES” and said he had ordered a temporary halt to planned military strikes just days after issuing a stark ultimatum to Tehran.

The shift came a day after Trump warned Iran that it had 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of its energy infrastructure. Iran, in return, threatened to “irreversibly destroy” essential energy infrastructure and water systems in neighboring Gulf nations.

Reacting to the news, Scarborough said: “There will obviously be people that will be drawing conclusions. They’ll say, ‘Oh, Trump backed down’ or whatever. But I suspect it’s far more likely that talks have been going on. It’s also far more likely that [the Trump administration] decided not to take this step forward.”

In his own analysis, co-host Jonathan Lemire noted that the war was ongoing and that, despite the decision to delay strikes on infrastructure, other ongoing strikes against regime military targets would continue.

“The president is unhappy with the progress of this war. Obviously, the Strait of Hormuz being closed, you know, is roiling energy markets across the globe. So this is a way to back off of that. So that gives him a little more space to do that. We will have to see what’s next. You know, is this – the president’s fond of head feints, you know, is this meant to de-escalate? Well, there’s still going to be watching Kharg Island. What possibly could we have there? We just simply don’t know yet,” he said.

Scarborough cut in: “And we’ve actually joked over the weekend with each other when the president is saying he’s stepping back, that’s the time for Iran to duck.”

He laughed as Lemire added: “I was going to say, go into high alert!”

“When the president said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ And of course, that’s in part what he wants,” Scarborough said.

Lemire replied: “Very much so because this here, of course, does not open the Strait of Hormuz. That is still a major point of contention. That’s what this war is about right now. So we’re going to have to see what these next couple of days look like, how Iran responds.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

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