Since the end of the Republican presidential primary, many cable news outlets have experimented with live, on-air fact checks of Donald Trump, finally providing the vetting the media and Trump's GOP primary rivals failed to do for months. On Tuesday, MSNBC's "Morning Joe," used the GOP nominee's own words to serve as a blistering takedown of his own newly proposed plan to fight terrorism.
Evident flip-flops by a candidate have served as some of the most effective negative campaign ads, as a viral 13-minute clip of Hillary Clinton's ever evolving positions released during the Democratic primary earlier this year illustrated. Clinton's campaign apparently took note of the ad's effective tone, employing Trump's own words in a newly released ad hitting the businessman for refusing to release his tax returns.
In the "Morning Joe" variation of the flip-flop ad, Trump contradicts nearly every foreign policy critique he dishes out to Clinton.
"I was an opponent of invading Iraq from the beginning," Trump stressed at his Youngstown, Ohio address Monday to open the clip. Seconds later, Trump tells Howard Stern he supports invading Iraq exactly one year after 9-11.
On Monday, Trump again slammed Clinton and President Obama for the "catastrophic" mess they left by pulling U.S. ground troops out of Iraq, per the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated by former president George. W. Bush.
"Declare victory and leave," Trump demanded, however, during a 2007 CNN interview, calling on U.S. troops "to get out!"
The "Morning Joe" team then spliced Trump's 2011 call to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi with his rebuke of Obama's decision to do just that. And again, Trump's own words undercut his criticism of the Obama administration's decisions in Egypt following the Arab Spring.
BTW, Trump's blog post calling for immediate action in Libya is still on his Facebook: https://t.co/qNVcmYuw6X pic.twitter.com/0MCPHB733z
— andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 16, 2016
"How do you clean that up," an astonished Joe Scarborough asks after the 83-second clip finally ends. Watch below:
Trump's take on foreign affairs: Then... and now. https://t.co/MM8I9W4Erk
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) August 16, 2016
(H/T: Washington Post)
Shares