With his extensive foreign policy speech Wednesday, Donald Trump positioned himself in a place far left of Hillary Clinton's, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Thursday.
"If everybody hadn't been mocking him so much, they would figure him out politically," Scarborough, a former Florida representative, said on his
"Morning Joe" program. "This is how they missed the rise of Donald Trump. He positioned himself to the left. She's the neo-con and he's the one preaching restraint."
Bloomberg Politics Editor Mark Halperin agreed that Trump's speech was not the "most specific speech ever," but it was attacked from people on the left and the right for the same reasons, and shows that Trump will face "something that I don't remember any general candidate taking, fire from both sides."
Further, reporters who mocked the speech and didn't try to break it down also show a problem for Trump moving forward.
"They have done this from day one," said Scarborough. "They get a foreign policy speech, the first reaction is mocking and ridicule."
Richard Haass, a former diplomat and current president of the Council of Foreign Relations, said the speech demonstrated an economic nationalist position, agreeing with Scarborough that Trump's stance is very "Jacksonian," a reference to late
President Andrew Jackson's movement toward greater democracy for the common man.
He agreed with Scarborough that it was ironic for Trump to take a position to the left, but noted that when Bill Clinton ran for president, he positioned himself to the right of George H.W. Bush on the use of force in Bosnia and Serbia for a "bit of political jujitsu" no one saw coming.
"What was interesting about the speech, in this case, is Clinton is about to get outflanked to the left," said Haass. "What Donald Trump was saying in some ways had echoes of Bernie Sanders . . where [there was] one Clinton flying establishment to the right, you have another Clinton being outflanked to the left. This is an interesting political move."
Scarborough said that he doesn't suggest going back to Jacksonian foreign policy, but still, Trump "once again with this speech tapped into the angst."
Meanwhile, NBC's Willie Geist said he thought the speech was a "microcosm of his campaign."
"There weren't particulars, but people who love and support him weren't looking for particulars," Geist said. "They want to be reminded he would put America first. If you're in the middle and don't like him, it was ridiculous."
In another point in about the speech, Scarborough said that Trump's call to pull back from paying to help defend countries like Germany and Japan reflect the thinking of many Americans who think those countries can take care of their own foreign policy.
"It's not 1945 anymore," he said, and taxpayers want to know "'why are we carrying two of the most powerful economies in the world on our backs. We're sick and tired of it. Taxpayers here shouldn't do it . . . when Donald Trump starts talking that way, there are a lot of people across the nation nodding."
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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