Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough scolded Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his combative appearance at Wednesday’s congressional hearing, mocking the performance as going “full Bondi” while also warning such “petulant” grandstanding has a track record of backfiring with President Donald Trump.

Hegseth clashed with Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee as he used his first major appearance before Congress since the start of the Iran war to accuse lawmakers in both parties of undermining U.S. efforts with “feckless and defeatist words.”

The hearing, formally convened to examine the Pentagon’s budget request, instead devolved into a heated exchange over the conflict, with Hegseth forcefully defending the operation.

During Thursday’s opening hour on Morning Joe, Scarborough cast doubt on any assurances that Hegseth might have that his behavior would have impressed the president, zeroing in on the defense secretary’s insult to lawmakers as an “adversary” in his opening statement:

When you see this petulant display, I can say people would say, ‘Oh, Donald Trump likes it’ – I don’t know. He didn’t like it when Pam Bondi did it! And yesterday reminded me of Pam Bondi’s performance, the worst performance on Capitol Hill I think, certainly, I’ve ever seen before the Armed Services Committee, when you actually tell Republicans and Democrats that they are a greater adversary than the Revolutionary Guard, that they are a greater adversary than the mullahs, the ayatollahs in Iran, that there are greater adversary than the government that has actually run a state that’s the epicenter of terrorism since 1979.

The host went on to argue that the American public were “proud” of the military’s success and capability, adding that the right kind of messenger from the Trump administration might be able to help voters “understand” that on the “other side” of the conflict is a “safe world” and “safe Iran.”

Hegseth, Scarborough followed, did not deliver that and instead “decided to go full Bondi.”

“That was full Bondi,” co-host Mika Brzezinski echoed.

“I think we all know this,” Scarborough continued. “You never go full Bondi right? You never go full Bondi. It never works. And he went full Bondi, man. You don’t go full Bondi. Don’t do it. He went full Bondi.”

Hegseth is set to deliver his first Senate testimony since the start of the Iran war on Thursday morning, in a hearing officially focused on the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion budget request.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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