MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski Friday morning praised Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's speech
ripping Donald Trump's foreign policy as "presidential," while saying the presumptive GOP nominee's response made him sound like a "buffoon."
"Everything she said cut," Brzezinski said on the
early morning program. "Everything she said was true. Everything she said completely resonated. It was the most devastating attack on Donald Trump that we have seen so far. The only one who ever came close was Elizabeth Warren but I will tell you this was presidential and this was her basically writing him off and going like this, 'goodbye.'"
She went on to call Clinton "awesome," saying that she connected with a "nasty attack" that likely came because Trump "is such an easy target. Republicans who are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out how to get behind him really ought to be looking for another candidate."
Nicole Wallace, a one-time communications director for President George W. Bush, commented that the "earth was softened" by Republicans such as Mitt Romney, Bob Gates, and Marco Rubio.
However, she said when the attacks come from within the party "it looks like self-sabotage."
Wallace continued that Clinton was spurred in her attacks by Gates, after the former Secretary of Defense CIA Director
Robert Gates appeared on the program and questioned Trump's temperament.
"Hillary Clinton maybe saw or learned that that had gotten under his skin," Wallace said. "The whole way to run against Donald Trump, which the 16 Republicans never figured out, it's psychological, it's belittle him or mock him and she did both to great effect. Now, we have to give Trump credit, he will come roaring back."
Trump, at his San Jose rally, blamed Clinton's speech on the controversy over her email server, calling the speech "pathetic" and commenting that she will follow President Barack Obama's agenda because "she doesn't want to go to jail."
And shortly after the "Morning Joe" program ended, Trump attacked the show through his Twitter account:
Political commentator Mike Barnicle, a regular on the show, agreed that Clinton, in her speech, said to the country that she is running for president "against a guy in a red hat. You see Trump in these clips, you know, yelling something that people have accused Hillary Clinton of doing, yelling and screaming, except she was absolutely dead on."
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that Clinton was going after Trump's "lack of knowledge and his temperament."
"Clinton is squarely in really the post-World War II, post-Cold War mainstream of American foreign policy," said Haass. "She is essentially a realist, you can see large similarities between her and President [George H.W.] Bush and others, the Eisenhowers, the Nixons. Donald Trump is not. He represents closer to Robert Taft, it's a minimalist view of America's role in the world. It's economically nationalist and sees the world is 'ripping us off.'"
Brzezinski, meanwhile, said she does believe Trump has the "talent to pivot" his campaign, but he's "throwing it away and I don't know why ... he must have gotten ADD (attention-deficit disorder) and decided, 'this is too hard. I don't want to do this.' Because he could do this, he's got the talent, he's got the ability, he's got the platform."