MSNBC's "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough has a theory about Donald Trump's claims that President Barack Obama was the "founder of ISIS" — and Friday's decision to claim his comments were "sarcasm," a diversion.
"I'm wondering whether he understood just how dangerous the Second Amendment comment was," Scarborough said on the morning program Friday, referring to Trump's call for "Second Amendment people" to stop rival candidate Hillary Clinton from appointing Supreme Court Justices. "He realized he had to trump that with something . . . because people did stop talking about the Secret Service."
The program played several clips of Trump doubling and even tripling down on his assertion that Obama and Clinton were founders and could be considered as "most valuable players" for the Islamist terrorist groups.
The clips included an interview with conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt said he understood that Obama created a vacuum in Iraq by withdrawing troops, but Trump insisted that he "meant he's the founder of ISIS."
"I saw it again," Scarborough said Friday. "It's not a joke. It wasn't a joke — the assassination comment. Maybe this was his way of moving on through a couple of news cycles and leaving that story behind."
However, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, also on the morning show's panel, said Scarborough's theory was a good one, but he doubted "that it's that planned."
"It's just him," Robinson said. "It's just him. He says these things because probably for an instant or for a moment he believes it. He says what he wants to say and he gets the response from his people that he wants to get.
"The Obama, the founder of ISIS thing, it was crazy when he said it. It was absolutely insane when he defended it with Hewitt at length saying, 'No, no, no, really, that's what I meant.'"
Robinson said Trump's "sarcasm" tweet also left him wondering if Trump has "short-term memory loss or something."
"It's like every day is a new day," Robinson said. "It's like the previous day didn't happen. [It's like] short-term memory loss or something."
Show co-host Mika Brzezinski commented that Trump's "overexposure of negative publicity is staggering. This is like seeing someone in all his glory in a hideous way and then like talking about it for the next three months."
Trump, meanwhile, tweeted a taunt to television pundits for trying to figure out his motives, with naming who he meant:
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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