MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough torched President Donald Trump’s deal with Iran as “abject surrender” and warned it will make Iran “more powerful than they’ve ever been.”

On Thursday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough and his co-hosts raised numerous red flags over the 14-point memorandum of understanding (MOU) set to lift sanctions on Iran, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and more.

Scarborough argued Iran sees the deal as a “victory” and they’re “jubilant,” especially over the framework for a $300 billion reconstruction fund for the country. He blasted the administration’s tough talk on Iran and social media memes, chalking it up to a “lie” in light of the new deal.

He said:

Well, showing him an iPad with things blowing up, putting out memes from Hollywood movies or cartoons. And that was supposed to substitute as basically communications coming out of the Pentagon or out of the White House about how this war — all of it ended up being a lie. I mean, we have looked back at the lies told by the Pentagon during the Vietnam War with [Gen.] William Westmoreland. And of course, that came over years. But the damage over the past several months that has put us where we are this morning, where Iran is going to be a behemoth in the region with this money, with this MOU. If we do follow through on this MOU, Iran will be more powerful than they’ve ever been. The Iranians know it and are jubilant about this victory that they’ve achieved, and they’re calling it what it is for them, a victory. The Saudis yesterday, who were compared to Iran, I’m sure they love that, where Donald Trump says, well, of course, Iran needs to have ballistic missiles. I mean, if Saudi Arabia has ballistic missiles, how the hell can I tell Iran they can’t have ballistic missiles? Really? Well, you know, because just about a month or two ago, it was [Secretary of Defense] Pete Hegseth telling us that all ballistic missiles had been destroyed.

Trump said on Wednesday that it would be unfair to force Iran not to have ballistic missiles.

“I’m saying that ⁠if other countries have ​them, it’s a little bit ​unfair for them not to have some,” he told reporters in Paris.

The president has stressed the current deal would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, though critics have expressed serious concerns, and Scarborough argued history shows how the deal will play out with the Iranians.

He said:

We’ve always joked throughout the war about trying to find the moderates in Iran and how there are not those moderates in Iran who get to power, or else they get killed. And so [Vice President] JD Vance keeps talking about the moderates in Iran. And The Wall Street Journal rightly says, every president that has given Iran a good deal, thinking that they were going to get the moderates to move forward in Iran, what’s happened? Well, what’s happened in Iran has used the money to invest in terrorism, to invest in global spreading, global terrorism across the region and across the world. And it’s happened for 47 years. And now that they see a weak president who is scared to continue this fight, in their eyes, they understand they can get whatever they want.

Scarborough later noted that the current form of the MOU would include “reparations” totaling more than Germany was ordered to pay after World War I, a move many believe directly led to World War II.

Scarborough said:

As we all grew up learning, and I’m not sure anybody in the administration has read any history, but if they had, they would understand that many people believe that World War II began because the Germans were forced to pay so much in reparations at the end of World War I. Here’s a fun little fact, though. The United States is paying Iran more in war reparations under this deal than Kaiser Wilhelm II paid the allied powers at Versailles in 1919. What we’re doing here is an abject surrender. There’s no talking your way out of it. That’s what it is. And the reparations we are paying Iran through the $300 million that the United States guarantees, the $300 billion… The Wall Street Journal writes about an unfrozen funds, the $60 billion a year that they can now make every single year off of their oil industry because we’re lifting all sanctions under this MOU. The United States is paying Iran more in war reparations in 2026 than Kaiser Wilhelm II and a defeated Germany at the end of World War I agreed to pay out at Versailles. That’s how bad this deal is.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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