Joe Scarborough Takes NSFW Jab at ‘Clown’ Hegseth’s Awkward Hand Gesture

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough mocked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s awkward hand gesture made at a presser on Tuesday — that even raised President Donald Trump’s eyebrows — with repeated sexual innuendos.

During the Oval Office presser on Tuesday, Trump stood behind Hegseth as the pair discussed potential negotiations with Iran, which the regime denies are happening.

While Hegseth warned that the U.S. would keep up military pressure, he shook his hand up and down as he said: “We’re keeping our hand on that throttle. As long as it’s hard, as is necessary to ensure the interests of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield.”

Rolling back the clip on Wednesday morning, Scarborough immediately seized on the innuendo, quoting back the Defense Secretary’s words: “‘As long as it’s hard.’ President eyebrows, like, ‘Yeah, well, I guess so.’”

“Put the throttle down!” co-host Willie Geist joined in, as co-host Mika Brzezinski stuttered in shock.

As co-hosts laughed, Scarborough continued: “Go all the way! You know, it’s very interesting to me that, you know, Donald Trump, anybody that’s ever talked to him, he always talks about central casting. This guy –”

“I was uncomfortable,” Brzezinski muttered.

“This guy about the throttle, this guy is the opposite of central casting. Like he’s a kid!” Scarborough said, pitching up his voice to mock another statement made by Hegseth: “‘We’ll negotiate with bombs.’”

He continued: “I mean, do you think an Iranian, like a member of the Revolutionary Guards, is going to go: ‘Oh, this scares me very much!’ No! Because of what a clown! You put the generals up with all those medals and they talk about, ‘Hey, we’re gonna…’ yada, yada…”

Brzezinski, hung up on the gesture, followed: “I just – but what was he saying?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. We’ll talk about that later,” Scarborough replied.

“OK,” Brzezinski stopped.

The host carried on: “But you get what I’m saying. This guy is the opposite of central casting. This guy isn’t [U.S. Army General] Norman Schwarzkopf, right? This guy isn’t like those guys that were up in the Gulf War, the first Gulf War, I mean, he’s a kid, and I don’t even say that…”

“It’s not comforting,” Brzezinski added.

Scarborough replied: “Well, you don’t want to be comforting up there. You want to scare the hell out of people.”

“You want to feel like the person really has a grasp of the situation,” Brzezinski said, slipping into innuendo again.

Scarborough didn’t miss a beat as his wife winced: “He’s got a grasp of the throttle, he says. But, Willie, really, it’s so childish. He’s a kid. And why? This guy’s not from central casting. You want to scare the Iranians. This does not do that.”

Mocking Hegseth with a kid’s voice again, the host added: “‘Guys, we negotiate with bombs. Wheee!”

Geist interjected: “He thinks that he’s saying the things that will make Dad proud behind him. He talks like a podcaster and he gets in the briefing rooms and he attacks the media and he attacks Joe Biden and Barack Obama. You’re the head of the Department of Defense, if you want to host a podcast, go host a podcast. You’d probably be good at it and have a lot of listeners.”

His co-hosts agreed.

“But you’re running a war right now,” Geist continued. “That is the Department of Defense, and that kind of bluster feels unconvincing, I guess, to put it mildly. It feels like he’s trying to play a part and say the thing that will get him a pat on the back from the guy standing behind him.”

“Trying too hard,” Scarborough said.

“It’s frat boy rhetoric,” co-host Jonathan Lemire offered.

Lemire then focused on an edit of the moment that highlights Trump’s raised eyebrows: “There is a clip that zeroes in on President Trump’s face as Hegseth’s doing the throttle, his eyebrows, he just can’t keep him in control.”

“Oh my gosh, OK,” Brzezinski said, clearly having had enough of the banter.

Lemire added, more seriously: “But this is the rhetoric we’ve gotten at Pentagon briefings and yesterday from the Oval Office.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

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