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Trump insulting US allies while ‘embracing autocratic thugs’: Scarborough

Monday, 17 July 2017 6:27 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 17 July 2017 6:36 PM ]

US President Donald Trump

Former US Congressman and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has slammed President Donald Trump, saying he is insulting America’s traditional allies while “embracing autocratic thugs.”

Scarborough, a former Republican lawmaker from Florida, announced last week that he was ending his association with the party. In an article published by The Washington Post on Sunday night, he called the GOP “a dying party I can no longer defend.”

He added that Republicans who are working with the president are “making the majority of Americans regret” voting for the party.

“The political movement that once stood athwart history resisting bloated government and military adventurism has been reduced to an amalgam of talk-radio resentments,” Scarborough wrote. “President Trump’s Republicans have devolved into a party without a cause, dominated by a leader hopelessly ill-informed about the basics of conservatism, US history and the Constitution.”

Scarborough censured Republicans for not scrutinizing Trump’s policies and supporting him instead of Republican values that voters want to see enacted in Washington.

“The GOP president questioned America’s constitutional system of checks and balances. Republican leaders said nothing. He echoed Stalin and Mao by calling the free press ‘the enemy of the people,’” the analyst wrote.

“Republican leaders were silent. And as the commander in chief insulted allies while embracing autocratic thugs, Republicans who spent a decade supporting wars of choice remained quiet,” he added.

“Last week’s Russia revelations show just how shamelessly Republican lawmakers will stand by a longtime Democrat who switched parties after the promotion of a racist theory about Barack Obama gave him standing in Lincoln’s once-proud party,” Scarborough continued. “Neither Lincoln, William Buckley nor Ronald Reagan would recognize this movement.”

A handout picture provided by the Saudi Royal Palace on May 20, 2017 shows US President Donald Trump (2nd-R) and Saudi Arabia's King Salman (L) dancing with swords at a welcome ceremony ahead of a banquet at the Murabba Palace in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. (Photo by AFP)

Traditionally, US presidents choose Canada or Mexico for their first foreign visit, but Trump ignored neighbors and landed in Saudi Arabia for his first overseas trip in May.

Trump performed a sword dance with the Saudi monarch after signing a $110 billion arms agreement with the kingdom. The deal was a component of $350 billion in economic and military investments between the two countries over the next 10 years, according to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

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