Joe Scarborough: Donald Trump ‘Far Graver Threat to the Idea of America’ Than 9/11

In an opinion editorial published by The Washington Post Monday, MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough claimed President Donald Trump poses a “far graver threat to the idea of America” than the September 11 attacks.

Scarborough’s piece, titled “Trump is harming the dream of America more than any foreign adversary ever could,” begins with the virulent Trump critic chronicling various foreign policy blunders committed by previous White Houses following the fateful terror attacks on September 11, 2001. The culmination of such “tragic lessons” — including then-President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq without sufficient evidence tying Saddam Hussein to the attacks and subsequent death of 5,000 U.S. troops at a cost of $2 trillion  — Scarborough writes that America’s diminishing position on the global stage under President Trump, makes the current administration more dangerous than the 9/11 attacks themselves.

The former Republican Congress also argues “[s]ixteen years of strategic missteps” not only set the stage for then-candidate Donald Trump’s brand of populism to propel him to the highest office in the land but has also “lent a sympathetic ear to neo-Nazis and white supremacists across the globe.”

“For those of us still believing that Islamic extremists hate America because of the freedoms we guarantee to all people, the gravest threat Trump poses to our national security is the damage done daily to America’s image,” he continues. “As the New York Times’s Roger Cohen wrote the month after Trump’s election, “America is an idea. Strip freedom, human rights, democracy, and the rule of law from what the United States represents to the world, and America itself is gutted.”

Scarborough commemorated the attacks during Tuesday morning’s broadcast by reading excerpts of the controversial op-ed and extended his criticism of the president. “America is an idea,” he warned. “You gut America of an idea, that is when you do the most harm.”

In April, the MSNBC host penned a piece for the Post titled “It’s becoming clear that Trump won’t run in 2020,” in which he raised the prospect of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley challenging the president for the Republican nomination.

“How wonderful would it be for our daughters to see this woman — this daughter of immigrants — take a debate stage to coldly cut the Donald down to size, revealing to the world once and for all that this bloated emperor has no clothes,” Scarborough wrote.

In July, dubbed the socialist, far-left wing of the Democrat Party “Woke Nation,” comparing the open-borders, Russia-obsessed faction with the conservative Tea Party movement of 2010. “2010 Tea Party, Meet 2018 Woke Nation,” Scarborough wrote, tweeting a Commentary Magazine op-ed by Never-Trumper Noah Rothman.