MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough rips Trump’s visit with the troops, calls president a ‘quivering coward’

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said President Trump’s policies will put American troops in great danger. (YouTube)

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” namesake Joe Scarborough slammed President Trump’s surprise visit with the troops on Thursday in a monologue that came on the heels of NBC News playing up a narrative that he hadn’t visited soldiers yet.

Trump and the first lady appeared in Iraq on Wednesday for a surprise visit with troops and senior military leadership at Al Asad Air Base – forcing NBC News to add an editor’s note to a story headlined, “Trump becomes first president since 2002 not to visit troops at Christmastime.”

But it wasn’t enough for Scarborough, who pointed out that troops were clearly happy to see the president before pivoting to negativity and calling Trump’s behavior “unbecoming,” “bush league” and saying past leaders would have treated the troops with more respect.

“But we should also be concerned that Mr. Trump, once again, used a captive audience of American heroes to push his unpopular domestic agenda,” Scarborough said. “Even in doing something right, he figures out a way to sow chaos.”

Scarborough then said Trump’s policies will put the troops – and all Americans -- in “greater danger.”

“We used to fight ISIS and terrorists in Syria and other places across the globe so we wouldn’t have to fight them here at home, or in those soldiers' hometown. But Donald Trump, he thinks that’s how suckers fight. He wants to fight here, I guess,” Scarborough said. “Things are changing under Donald Trump. U.S. leaders once stood up to bullying threats from tyrannical thugs.”

The MSNBC host said Trump “caved like a quivering coward” from threats by Russia and Turkey.

“We have a weak president who fears Russia and fears Turkey,” Scarborough said. “We aren’t the suckers after all, Mr. President. You are.”

Scarborough then declared that Trump’s policies will not make America great again.

“It’s actually going to make us much weaker than we’ve been at any time since World War II,” he said.

Fox News’ Travis Fedschun contributed to this report.