Even with many of their top personalities on vacation Friday, it didn’t slow down MSNBC’s smearing of President-Elect Donald Trump. Fill in host Katy Tur was in an admitted state of confusion in MSNBC Live, because of perceived conflicts with Trump’s approach to dealing with Russia. “You know, I've got to say, I got a bit of whiplash here. I'm not quite sure what's going on. Mark, can you break it down for me,” she asked her guest, Mark Jacobson, a former adviser to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.
Earlier that morning Trump contacted Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski and announced a possible new arms race with Russia, then a few hours later he released a letter he received from Russian President Vladimir Putin, described by Trump as “very nice.” That is where Tur confusion was drawn from.
“I'm not quite sure what's going on between Trump's back and forth with his own people over the statements on nuclear weapons and, look, only Donald Trump could make Vladimir Putin seem like a diplomat,” Jacobson, the former Obama administration official, chided. “I mean, this back and forth congratulatory tone between the two for them really ignores the realities that are going on,” he continued.
Jacobson’s attack is rather ridiculous since he worked for a presidential administration that believed they could “reset” America’s relationship with Russia, and who openly mocked Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for accurately identifying Russia as the country’s top geo-political threat. “Whether it’s in Aleppo, in Ukraine, and I’m just stunned that you have a Republican presidential—president-elect who is taking this sort of line on the Russians,” he argued unironically.
Tur was still “a bit lost,” but teed up Jacobson by wondered if that meant that Trump’s plan of being unpredictable was working. He swung away, declaring, “I don't mean to sound glib but we’re starting to see the corner stones of the Trump foreign policy as being inconsistency, ignorance, and maybe irresponsibility.” But those things are exactly what we got during the Obama years with the Syrian “red line,” overlooking Russia, and now turning his back on Israel to name a few.
Both Tur and Jacobson were up in arms over Trump’s use of Twitter to release statements to the public, “You don't work international relations via Twitter,” he exclaimed. But the Obama administration had been the pioneer of hashtag activism for years, remember First Lady Michelle Obama fighting Boko Haram terrorists with “#BringBackOurGirls?”
Playing off of her guest, Tur tried to diminish Trump’s presidency by feigning concern for Trump’s cabinet. “How do you think … General Mattis is going to be reacting to this now, realizing that he's got somebody who potentially going to change nuclear policy through a tweet,” she asked while sounding irritated and crossing her arms.
Before moving on to discussing Russian hacking, Jacobson had a dire warning for the MSNBC audience:
I think Jim Mattis and frankly, Mike Flynn and Tillerson and others are going to have to put him in that groove or we're going to be in a dangerous place in this nation. And so, I’m telling you what needs to happen, I'm not confident yet that they'll be able to do that with Trump.
This kind of vitriol would never be tolerated by the left if it was Hillary Clinton who was headed to the Oval Office. MSNBC wouldn’t think to bring on a former George W. Bush official to bash her, they only air the ones bashing Republicans.