Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough is one of the few cable talking heads who always calls out Trump lies (but then, he has so much more to do penance for.)
"The White House says there is no contrast in tone between the president and his national security advisor H.R.McMaster, who formally steps aside this month after both spoke about Russian aggression only hours apart on Tuesday," Willie Geist said before playing this clip.
McMASTER: Mr. Putin may believe that he is winning in this new form of warfare.
TRUMP: We'll find out. I'll let you know. it will be a time when i'll let you know.
McMASTER: Russia brazenly and implausibly denies its actions.
TRUMP: Probably nobody's been tougher to Russia than Donald Trump.
McMASTER: We have failed to impose sufficient costs.
TRUMP: Nobody's been tougher on Russia than I have.
McMASTER: Perhaps Putin believes our free nations are weak and will not respond.
TRUMP: Everyone agrees when they think about it.
McMASTER: We might all help Mr. Putin understand his grave error.
Then he contrasted this with a Huckabee-Sanders press conference yesterday.
REPORTER: Does he agree with McMaster that we have failed to impose sufficient costs on Russia?
SANDERS: What McMaster actually said is we've been very tough on Russia. He echoed the president's message that he said yesterday during the press conference with the Baltic leaders that no one has been tougher on Russia than this president. what he also said was that other nations could do more and should do more. and we -- that's not different or in contrast to anything that we've said.
"While McMaster said in his speech that the United States is acting, he also said quote, 'We must recognize the need for all of us to do more to respond to and deter Russian aggression,' and McMaster did not, as Sanders said, say no one has been tougher on Russia than President Trump," Geist said.
"Just six and a half weeks ago when he spoke about the meddling in the 2016 election, President trump tweeted this: "General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the election were not changed by the Russians and that the only collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Democrats.
"Joe, here's the quote from McMaster. 'We have failed to impose sufficient costs and by the way, John Bolton, the incoming national security advisor, he's a hawk on Russia as well."
"Yeah and here we have one more example, Katty Kay, of Sarah Huckabee Sanders lying and we've been talking about what the president's been doing over the past week has not been skirting issues," Scarborough said.
"He's been lying outright about Amazon, he's been lying about the Washington Post, he's been lying about Russia, he's lying about McMaster, now you have, of course, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, two lies there. McMaster never said that no one's been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump. That is a lie. Full stop.
"Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied yesterday again. That's a lie. She also lied when she said that -- when she denied that McMaster said the quote was we have failed to hit them enough. And again, she lied about that as well. Donald Trump also -- it's just saying we'll find out later whether this man is an enemy or not to the United States when he's interfered with our democracy, he's attacking our closest ally, the one we've always had a special relationship with, killing people on British soil? What exactly does
"I mean, what exactly does this man have to do in Syria, with Iran, in Great Britain, across the world for Republicans to stand up him?"
Oh, I don't know. Take away their offices and make them sit in the basement?.
