John McCain Tag Teams With Morning Joe To Label Obama’s Foreign Policy As “Delusional”

On Monday morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) did what he does best, which is preen for the cameras and make a couple of appearances on cable news shows. Besides showing up on the familiar and comfy couch of Fox & Friends, McCain made his way over to MSNBC’s studio for an extended sit down with the Morning Joe crew. While co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough fawned over his every word, McCain called President Obama “delusional” when it came to foreign policy and seemingly called for additional troops to be deployed to deal with Russia in the aftermath of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov’s murder.

In the Monday morning interview, McCain rang the familiar bell of more military action and more troops to deal with the situations around the globe that he feels warrants direct American intervention. Regarding the gunning down of Nemtsov, a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Arizona Senator told Mika and Joe that he warned Nemtsov that he might be killed. At that point, McCain nibbled around the corners regarding the Obama Administration’s liability in his death as he made the case that the United States should have done more by now to make sure Putin was out of power.

The one-time Republican nominee for President then joined forces with Scarborough to complain about Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry’s policy decisions when it come to Russia and their attempts to occupy Ukraine. Both of them made the case that the US should deploy troops to the Russian border in order to let Putin know America means business. Joe made sure to point out to viewers that they weren’t calling for new troops to be sent over, but instead were just calling for troops already in Germany to be re-positioned. Meanwhile, McCain was careful not to explicitly state that he wanted to use military force against Russia as a way to remove Putin from power. However, the tone of the conversation definitely suggested that, even as he only definitively said he’d recommend more and harsher sanctions against the country.

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Beyond that, McCain also complained that Kerry was scheduled to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva on Monday to discuss a recent cease-fire in Ukraine and the ongoing situation there. In McCain’s mind, Kerry shouldn’t meet with him because of Nemtsov’s death because the meeting makes it seem as “nothing happened.” Essentially, the Republican Senator doesn’t want Kerry or Obama speaking to Russia at all. Instead, he’d prefer for a President to cowboy up, shake a stick really hard, and bark and grumble really loud. (In other words, he’s still really, really peeved he lost in 2008.)

Below is video of the interview, courtesy of MSNBC:

The rest of the interview was standard McCain fare. He whined some more about the President, specifically when it came to his overall foreign policy and his executive orders on immigration. Speaking about the possibility of a US-Iran nuclear deal, McCain loudly complained about the administration’s insistence on getting a deal done, using it as the basis to call Obama’s foreign policy “delusional.” However, McCain did make Mika happy by blaming both sides regarding the current relationship between Congress and the White House, claiming it is at its worst level ever. As anyone who watches MSNBC in the morning knows, nothing makes the milquetoast hosts happier than saying “both sides are to blame.”

Justin Baragona

Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).