MS NOW’s Morning Joe crew warned President Donald Trump that the ability to “humiliate” U.S. presidents was an Iranian “specialism” on Monday as the panel claimed the regime is holding “him hostage” and have “boxed” him in.

The remarks came one day after Trump blasted the Iranian peace deal counteroffer as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” in a Truth Social post on Sunday and attacked former President Barack Obama for being “weak and stupid” in his handling of Iran’s ruling “thugs.”

Scarborough kicked off the segment on Monday’s Morning Joe by noting a report by co-host Jonathan Lemire quoting a Trump adviser, who said the president was “bored” of the war.

After the president told him the conflict would be over in “two weeks,” the host recalled not believing it, saying he believed Trump would want to “move on” to “Cuba and other things.”

“He just can’t. And we see why. Again, he can’t leave that country with a nuclear deal that is even weaker than what he thought Barack Obama’s deal was,” Scarborough said.

The host continued: “He can’t give them more money than Barack Obama gave. Remember the pallets of cash that Donald Trump and everybody else talked about? He can’t be even more weaker. He can’t leave with the straits being owned by the Iranians the way it’s owned by the Iranians.”

“Now, even if they can make more money after the war on oil than before the war, he looks extraordinarily weak. So he can’t leave unless he just wants to be seen as a weaker president than Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush in Iraq, the two presidents he constantly attacked for not getting good deals out of those countries,” he added.

Referencing Trump’s jab at Obama, Lemire replied: “He’s clearly trying to work through in real-time how he can get out of this war. He’s desperate to get out of it. He is indeed, as one senior adviser who used the word ‘bored.’ That’s correct. But there’s also this sense he’s deeply frustrated and feels like he’s boxed in. He doesn’t know how to get out.”

Scarborough returned to comments made in 2012 by his late father-in-law, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as former President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser through the Iran crisis in the 1970s, when he warned that attacking Iran would set “the world economy on fire.”

“That’s what’s happening,” the host added, noting the war gaming of Iran had long established that an attack on the country would play out as it has.

Pivoting to the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, Lemire said: “Iran, which has done this before, is reveling in its ability to sort of humiliate an American president. And that is what’s happening right now.”

“They’re holding him hostage,” added co-host Mika Brzezinski.

Lemire continued: “He desperately wants to move to other things, whether it’s Cuba, he understands the political pain here at home. You know, Republicans are frantically telling the White House, ‘Look at gas prices. Look at the cost. Look at the polls. We’re in real trouble.’”

“But Trump can’t even get Iran to agree to the next meeting. He rejected – you know, they sent over a one-page proposal. Iran countered Trump late last night after Iran made Washington wait a few days,” he said.

Scarborough said he had been reading a new biography Zbig, about Zbigniew Brzezinski and written by Financial Times columnist Ed Luce, who was on the Morning Joe panel. He reflected on how the Iranian hostage crisis dogged Carter’s presidency in the 1970s.

“The Iranians, day after day, week after week, would string American presidents along. And they did it, of course, you know, to other presidents, too, only to humiliate them at the end. And it did it to Jimmy Carter all the way through his presidency and waited until Ronald Reagan was sworn in to let the hostages leave Iranian airspace,” the host said.

“This is what Iranians do. They humiliate American presidents,” he followed.

Luce replied: “It is a specialism that they’ve been developing over many decades, and the fact that anybody could be surprised by that is extraordinary.”

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!