Maddow Goes After Trump for ‘Spitballing’ on Beirut Explosion: ‘Should Never, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever Happen from the White House’

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow went after President Donald Trump in the opening monologue of her primetime show for “spitballing” about an explosion in Beirut Tuesday night that killed over 50 people.

“Here’s a thing that should never, ever, ever, ever, ever happen from the White House,” Maddow said. “Not only should this never happen from the White House, it should never happen anywhere anyone is in any position of supposed authority. What happened today shouldn’t happen from a White House podium, but it also shouldn’t happen from a teacher’s desk. It shouldn’t happen from the voice of a cop giving you a parking ticket. It shouldn’t happen from a PA announcement at a supermarket about which car has its lights on in the parking lot.”

The comments she’s referring to are from Trump’s news conference Tuesday night, where the president said the explosion in Lebanon was a “terrible attack.” 

When a reporter followed up about his phrasing, Trump said, “I met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel like it was. This was not some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event. This … seems to be according to them, they would know better than I would, but they seem to think it was an attack, a bomb of some kind.”

The city’s director of the general security said that “high explosive materials” that were confiscated were to blame Tuesday afternoon. Prior to that, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported that the source of the explosion “was a major fire at a warehouse for firecrackers near the port.”

“To be clear, before the president said that today from the White House, there had been no public indication at all that this was an attack,” Maddow said. “That this was some sort of terrorist or military assaults on the city of Beirut. When the president of the United States speaking from the White House podium says ‘This is an attack,’ that’s a huge piece of news. That’s a huge deal. That’s like announcing the start of a war kind of news from the mouth of the president of the United States.”

“Except with this president, nah, turns out, grain of salt, he makes stuff up,” Maddow continued. “He didn’t know if it was an attack even when he was saying it’s an attack. He didn’t know. He was just spit balling.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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