Donald Trump Jr. laid into MSNBC host Joe Scarborough for his op-ed calling the Trump administration a worse threat to the country than the terrorist attacks.
In the op-ed, which was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, Mr. Scarborough argued that President Trump was damaging America more than “any foreign adversary ever could.”
“Osama bin Laden was killed by SEAL Team 6 before he accomplished that goal. Other tyrants who tried to do the same were consigned to the ash heap of history. The question for voters this fall is whether their country will move beyond this troubled chapter in history or whether they will continue supporting a politician who has done more damage to the dream of America than any foreign adversary ever could,” he concluded.
The president’s son took to Twitter to denounce the column and its timing as obscene.
Joe you owe an apology to the 3000+ families who lost loved ones on this tragic day. Injecting politics today is disgraceful and only shows how irrelevant and deranged you’ve become. https://t.co/tFncxA5CQT
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 11, 2018
After the column had begun to attract criticism, Mr. Scarborough acknowledged that his words might be read differently on a Sept. 11.
On September 11th, I’ll read the column again and think about whether I could have said the same thing in a way less offensive to Trump supporters on September 11th.
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) September 11, 2018
At least one Sept. 11 first-responder wasn’t having any of Mr. Scarborough’s backtracking. “As a nyc firefighter I detest every word you wrote! You will never understand what it’s like to lose 343 of your brothers in one day. U should truly be ashamed you wrote this,” wrote a Twitter user named “hammerhd.”
The lead art on Mr. Scarborough’s Twitter page Tuesday was the iconic image of several New York firefighters raising the U.S. flag amid the rubble that morning.
Mr. Trump also retweeted criticisms of Mr. Scarborough by conservative strategists Chris Barron and Dan Bongino, in which the former man called the column “a new low, even for Joe Scarborough” and the latter saying the “sick” and “deranged” column means “Joe Scarborough should hang his disturbed head in shame and he should resign from public life forever after this shameful analogy.”
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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