MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace called out Donald Trump for “gleefully and brazenly using troops as pawns” ahead of the big big military parade that will mark his 79th birthday Saturday,
Wallace, guest-hosting Pod Save America with former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau on Friday, discussed “the North Korean-style birthday party” Trump has “wanted for years.”
“This is so perverted from what’s normal,” Wallace said of Trump’s usurping the Army’s 250th birthday for his own celebration. As Trump’s team reportedly screened the military members in the audience for allegiance and physical appearance ahead of his Fort Bragg speech Tuesday, Wallace wondered aloud, “Who else is being vetted? Who else is being staged? Who else is being pushed out of the picture for being fat? I mean, what else is really happening there?”
Trump’s military parade is expected to take place Saturday at 6:30 p.m. ET. The president’s birthday celebration will cost taxpayers an estimated $45 million, but Wallace said Trump’s “perversion” of the non-partisan military will cost Americans more than just tax dollars long-term. “I think that we probably only see the tip of the iceberg,” she said.
The Fort Bragg speech, which served as a “pre-celebration” of sorts for the president, featured men and women in uniform booing Democrats. Wallace, a former communications director for George W. Bush, reflected on the traditional separation of politics from the U.S. military.
“You and I both wrote speeches for presidents that were delivered in front of troops,“ she said. “You’re cognizant that the applause lines don’t have anything to do with your president’s policies because you don’t want them to look like they have to applaud a policymaker.”
“You craft the speeches so that there’s only an applause when you’re celebrating the men and women of the military, either their current courage or their historic greatness,” she continued. For Trump to have encouraged and cherry-picked uniformed military members into a divisive display of loyalty to one side is troubling, Wallace said, but not surprising.
“To see this event at Fort Bragg and to see the way they are gleefully and brazenly using troops as pawns—the greatest victim of that is the troops, is the military,” she said. “And I think it’s actually shocking that the Republican senators are complicit.”
Wallace went on to express little hope that any Republican lawmakers will speak out. “Where are the people who are still willing to sort of put their body between brazen partisanship and the military?” she asked. “In the Republican Party, there aren’t any.”
“Even the former generals are afraid to speak out, or restrained from speaking out,” Wallace said, but she maintained that she will not be keeping quiet.
“I’m not not scared. I just don’t think it makes me safer to be quiet,” she explained. “I feel that way as a cable host. I’m not not concerned that they’re not looking for anyone in the media to make a mistake and then come after the media. I just don’t think you’re in a safer posture in a defensive crouch.”
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