'Dangerous misreading': Latest Trump plan said to open him up to 'great deal of problems'
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough raised questions about Donald Trump's surprising choice for secretary of defense.
The president-elect caught many inside and outside his orbit off guard by tapping the Fox News host, who served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay with the National Guard, and the "Morning Joe" host questioned the conservative broadcaster's qualifications for the job as civilian leader of the U.S. military.
"I served four terms on the Armed Services Committee, and I can tell you that even the most experienced general, admiral, CEO that went into the Pentagon got spun around in circles," Scarborough said. "It's a lot easier to say what you're going to do on a podcast than it is when you're actually over at the Pentagon. People that think that generals and admirals that have given their entire life to this country are just going to roll over is a serious misreading of the Pentagon, but we will see what happens."
ALSO READ: Do not submit: Your guide to a way out of this catastrophic mess
"We will see what he says when he is in front of the Senate," Scarborough added. "We will see what we hear in the coming days and weeks."
Hegseth, who served as an informal adviser to Trump in his first term, encouraged him to pardon troops accused of war crimes, questioned whether women should serve in combat roles and agreed with the former president's pledge to purge the military of "woke" generals, although it's not clear whether he agrees with the former president's openness to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations.
"For people out there saying well, you know, Donald Trump will be able to get whoever he wants through the Senate and then he can go and have what Republicans will call the witch hunt and go around and pick generals that they want to fire and just get rid of them," Scarborough said. "I think it's a dangerous misreading of the Pentagon, because if you start going through and firing generals for political reasons, there is a general feeling an attack on one is an attack on all. I suspect that would cause a great deal of problems. When I started saying they are going to have a board to go out and go through and fire generals and admirals they didn't like."
"I, again, thought it's just not that easy," Scarborough added. "It's just the Pentagon and the United States military is set apart and they are not going to bend to the will of anyone who they believe is issuing unconstitutional orders."
Watch below or click the link.
- YouTube youtu.be