
Political analyst Mark Halperin criticized Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons on Tuesday for not crediting President Donald Trump for foreign policy wins related to Iran and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Trump announced on Monday that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire, just two days following America’s bombing attack on three Iranian nuclear sites. On “Next Up with Mark Halperin,” Halperin played clips of Coons on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Tuesday where he neglected to offer praise to Trump for his achievements, saying it was indicative of Democrats’ poor political strategy.
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“I listen to even sensible Democrats — forget the ones on the far left whose Trump derangement syndrome is so strong that they’re never going to say anything nice about Donald Trump,” Halperin said. “And again, there are some people on the left who have a principled objection. And there’s no problem with that.”
“But Democrats now — the mission’s completed, he’s got at least a temporary peace deal — and here you have some Democrats, even reasonable Democrats, refusing to say, ‘Bravo, Mr. President. I may not agree with you on everything, but bravo,’” he continued. “They continue to argue something that — and this is where the bad politics comes in — they continue to say, ‘Well, he didn’t follow the letter of the law. He didn’t come to Congress and get permission.’”
Halperin then played a clip of Coons answering USA Today Washington Bureau chief Susan Page’s question about whether Trump was correct to strike Iran. Coons answered that he believed “ending Iran’s nuclear program would be a real positive for the region and for the United States” before criticizing the president for not consulting and notifying Congress.
“Okay, not a perfect metaphor, but to me it’s like saying, all right, somebody ran into a building burning and saved my puppy and brings the puppy out,” Halperin said after airing the clip. “And I say, ‘Well, I didn’t like the way you saved the puppy. There’s some things — you didn’t get my permission before you saved the puppy and I didn’t like the way you came out of the building. And I’ve got questions now about whether the puppy might run back into the building.’”
“Like, again — bad politics, bad policy. Rally around the commander-in-chief. Rally around Israel. Rally around the success,” he added. “If you want to raise objections to the process, if you want to worry about what happens next, by all means — First Amendment. And if you’ve got a principled objection, raise it. But his lack of credit to the president is striking to me.”
The Trump administration also pushed for NATO nations to boost their defense spending, with most nations consenting to reach the funding benchmark of 5% of gross domestic product.
Coons discussed this development on “Morning Joe” but did not commend Trump for his role.
“The talk of the town here at the NATO summit is the commitment of all 32 members to significantly step up their investment in defense, in joint support for Ukraine’s fight for freedom against Russian aggression and in our European allies and partners taking on more of the military burden of collective security here in Europe,” the senator said.
“‘Talk of the town in NATO.’ Yeah, the talk of the town in NATO is: Donald Trump forced the NATO countries to contribute something tens of millions of Americans wanted,” Halperin said after playing the clip. “Very clear campaign promise. People like Chris Coons said it would destroy NATO. And now he’s saying, matter-of-factly, ‘This is great,’ with no credit to the president.”
The political analyst called on Americans to put aside their political biases and celebrate wins, regardless of who the president is.
“I’ll say again: In matters of national security in particular, we’d be in a better country if people celebrated the success of our presidents — the things that made us stronger — even if it was politically beneficial to the president,” he said. “They should do it on Iran — no matter what happens with the deal — President Trump did it. He effectively did it. And they should be celebrating the achievement, or at least partial achievement, of a long-held bipartisan goal.”
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Author: Jason Cohen
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