Surprise, Surprise! Joe Scarborough Comes To Trump’s Defense Over His Iraq War Support

After Buzzfeed came across audio showing Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump expressing support for invading Iraq in 2002, the celebrity billionaire has been backpedaling. The quote was tossed back in his face by Anderson Cooper during Thursday night’s GOP town hall — minutes after Buzzfeed’s article hit the net — and Trump tried to dismiss it by saying he wasn’t a politician at the time, which is insanely stupid considering he’s running his campaign by touting his role as a non-politician.

By Friday night, though, The Donald got some support for the likeliest of all sources — Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough. Taking to his Twitter account, Scarborough sent out a tweet — complete with artwork — showing a quote from Trump during an appearance on Scarborough’s old MSNBC show expressing his doubts about the Iraq War in September 2003, six months after the United States invaded the country.

Trump expressed concerns several months after the Iraq War began, while 60% of Americans still supported the war. pic.twitter.com/9NAXNuMG0Y

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 20, 2016

Of course, Trump retweeted Joe, and on Saturday morning. Scarborough and the rest of the Morning Joe panel claimed that the pull-quote essentially vindicated Trump, as it shows that he was publicly against the Iraq War at the beginning. The former reality TV star also appeared on Fox & Friends at the same time and bragged about it.

The thing is, it doesn’t vindicate him. Trump’s shtick from the beginning of the campaign is that he was against the war from the word go and is apparently the only person in the whole country who felt that way. The Howard Stern interview from 2002 reveals he was for it six months before the invasion, when the Bush Administration was in full war-hype mode.

Also, as highlighted by Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, immediately after the war began, Trump was actually saying it looked like a “tremendous success from a military standpoint.” In fact, as FactCheck.org has shown, in the early days of the war, Trump was either publicly ambiguous about it, or expressed a bit of support. This flies in the face of Trump’s statements since the 2002 interview surfaced where he said he was against it when it began.

Remember Trump responded to 2002 clip by saying he opposed the Iraq War by the time it began. https://t.co/OJ0BXdy7o6

— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) February 19, 2016

Obviously, Joe knows this, but he has to make Daddy happy, so he found that quote and spread it around to make it seem like Trump isn’t full of shit. Morning Joe continues to be Trump’s Super PAC.