‘Absolutely Disgraceful!’ MS NOW Hosts Go OFF in Candid Real-Time Reaction to Trump’s ‘Open the F*ckin’ Strait’ Post

The panel of MS NOW’s The Weekend went off in what was a candid real-time reaction to President Donald Trump’s latest stunning threat to Iran.

In a fiery discussion shortly after 8 a.m. ET, Weekend hosts Jaqueline Alemany, Jonathan Capehart and Eugene Daniels — along with panelists Ankush Khardori of Politico and MS NOW’s Laura Barron-Lopez absolutely teed off on the president. The segment began with Daniels reading Trump’s Truth Social post uncensored.

“Open the fuckin’ straight you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell!” Daniels said, quoting Trump. “Just watch! Praise be to Allah.”

Khardori was first to weigh in — and he did not hold back.

“It’s really difficult for me to process this moment,” Khardori said. “I mean, this is a very unprecedented statement. We have the President of the United States basically declaring his intent to commit war crimes, right? … You’re not supposed to be targeting civilian infrastructure, even in countries that you are nominally at war with. And this is just a further escalation of the Trump administration’s … lack of interest in domestic international law, right? It started with the boat strikes in the international waters, right? Then we got the deposing of the Venezuelan president. We had the war in Iran. And now this — which is disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful coming from our U.S. President. And the language is disgraceful. The claims are disgraceful…This is a historically terrible communication. This is the sort of thing, I hate to say it, that you would expect to be introduced in a war crimes tribunal in the future.”

Capehart followed up by questioning the president’s mental acuity.

“This right here from the President of the United States, were it anyone else, we would be talking about the 25th Amendment,” Capehart said. “People in Congress would be raising hell! And why do I get the feeling that neither one of those things is going to happen?”

Daniels focused on the language of Trump’s post — particularly in the context of it having been published on Easter Sunday.

“From the leader of the party of family, the leader the party of Christian values, that matters!” Daniels said. “And I think like the fact that we’re not going to see not just the Republicans that are in there, but folks around the country who say …all of these things about queer people, and how people getting married that are gay are ruining the country, and they don’t care about God and Jesus on Easter Sunday, this is what your president tweeted!”

Capehart closed out the discussion by observing that Trump’s motivation for his post, in part, may have been to get a rise out of the media — while conceding that the gambit worked.

“Yeah, he probably did that because he wants us to get angry, wants the media angry,” Capehart. “Well you know what? Yeah — I will speak for myself as a member of the media. I am angry! Because the president of the United States should not be speaking like this! Not to the American people, not to the wider public, and certainly not during a time of war! This is outrageous!’

Watch above, via MS NOW.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!