Willie Geist confesses he had to "read and re-read" one of the passages from Trump's Saturday night speech.
"Where he compares the defeat of the radical left to the defeat of Nazis, communism and chasing terrorists like Osama Bin Laden, he said we did that as a country, we too can beat the radical left. An astounding comparison by the president of the United States," he said to former Bush staffer Elise Jordan.
"Jesus Christ, if that's what Donald Trump thinks the crisis this nation faces is right now, then we really are in a terrible, terrible state of affairs. I found it so incredible that Fourth of July weekend, huge address at Mount Rushmore, he does an odd history mash-up and grievance politics but doesn't talk about any of our current armed forces serving abroad in war zones.
"You look at all the recent scandal with Donald Trump not protecting our troops in Afghanistan from Russian bounties and instead cozying up to Putin even more, and you can see where this commander in chief's priorities are. Just to add to what Michael (Steele) said about how Donald Trump is going for the grievances, going for the culture war, that didn't go so well in 2018. Remember, the caravan narrative, and remember when that was what was supposed to really drive his voters at the last minute and he saw that narrative pretty roundly defeated as the blue wave went into office."
