‘Morning Joe’ Turns the Tables on Ron DeSantis Over Trump and Iran

Towards the end of a mostly congenial Tuesday interview with Ron DeSantis, Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough pressed the Republican presidential candidate on former President Donald Trump’s alleged exposure of confidential documents about potential Iranian war plans.

The grilling came after DeSantis said that “Trump’s approach to Iran was stronger than” President Joe Biden’s, adding that the upcoming election shouldn’t hinge on Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.

Amid the geopolitical crisis that is the Israel-Hamas war, the current media landscape has created some strange bedfellows. Case in point: the “anti-woke” Florida governor showing up on MSNBC’s morning flagship show on Tuesday morning. It was just this past February, in fact, when DeSantis announced he would be boycotting the network over an interview it did with Vice President Kamala Harris.

With the world on edge following Hamas’ horrific terrorist attack on Israel, however, DeSantis’ appearance on MSNBC centered largely on the international fallout from the already brutal war in the Middle East. Scarborough even pointed out at the top of the conversation that they would stay focused on the situation in Gaza.

“Today we’re going to talk about Israel, Iran, issues involved with that. We’d love for you to come back and talk about some other issues later. I’m sure you agree with us that right now that’s the pressing issue,” the MSNBC star noted.

Moments later, Scarborough once again reminded viewers looking for a fiery debate with DeSantis that they were concentrating solely on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“If you’re tuning in and expecting a conversation on domestic politics and the many things that we disagree on, well, as we have said, that can come another day, and we can have those debates on another day,” the Morning Joe host said.

Throughout the majority of the interview, that’s where things stood. Eventually, though, DeSantis took the opportunity to criticize the Biden administration over its “rapprochement” with Iran, suggesting that this helped fuel Hamas’ attack.

“On the $6 billion, I think that what Biden did was a mistake,” he said, referencing the recent unfreezing of funds for humanitarian purposes. “I think doing that deal sent the wrong signal. I think the fact that Iran was expecting that money, yes, that money did not go fund this, but I think money is fungible and gave them the ability to potentially shift money elsewhere.”

While framing himself as a better option than Trump, DeSantis still commended the ex-president over his handling of Iran and the Middle East.

“My view is anything that goes to that regime, they are not trying to make life better for the Iranian people. They are going to use that, and they are going to try to fund terrorism with it,” the governor declared. “And I think that that’s a lesson. But I will also say this. Donald Trump’s approach to Iran was stronger than his predecessors’, and it’s been stronger than Biden’s was. I think both Obama and Biden thought you could have rapprochement with them. I don’t think that that’s possible.”

Scarborough, meanwhile, asked DeSantis whether he agreed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own political scandals may have distracted him from the fight with Hamas and resulted in the intelligence failure preceding the terror attack. The governor instead saw a chance to hype his own presidential campaign.

“If the election is about Joe Biden’s failures and our positive vision for the future, which it would be if I was the candidate, we will win,” he stated. “If it is about what piece of paper or document was left at the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, or all these other things on Jan. 6, if that’s what the election is about, then it is going to allow Biden to be in his basement, and they’re going to be able to do it again.”

Having already repeatedly told the audience he wasn’t going to dive into campaign politics, Scarborough noted that DeSantis had broached the subject before he threw the candidate’s observation back in his face.

“Are you concerned by the fact that President Trump revealed war plans to invade Iran? Military attacks against Iran to people that didn’t have classified ability to see those documents?” Scarborough wondered.

Of course, the MSNBC host was referencing a top-secret document that Trump allegedly discussed during a 2021 meeting at his New Jersey golf club that was caught on tape. The ex-president was eventually charged with retaining the “highly confidential” document after leaving the White House.

Described in the federal indictment as a “presentation concerning military activity in a foreign country,” the document has been reported as a Pentagon document detailing plans to attack Iran. While Trump has claimed “there was no document,” CNN reported in July that the document was part of a set of records returned to the National Archives last year.

“I think that’s an allegation. It remains to be seen,” DeSantis shrugged in response. “Obviously, if it is proven, that would be a different thing.”

He then went on to continue to present himself as the better GOP alternative to Trump, claiming he gives Republicans “a fresh chance for a fresh start in America.”

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