Joe Scarborough didn’t mince words Tuesday as he torched Donald Trump’s foreign policy and his latest headline-grabbing move: accepting a $400 million private jet from Qatar’s royal family.
“This is chaos,” Scarborough said on Morning Joe. “It is hard for foreign leaders to follow, it’s hard for people in Wall Street to follow.”
Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia for a three-day visit mixing politics and business. But what really set off alarms—even among his own supporters—was his acceptance of a $400 million Boeing 747 from Qatar’s royal family to serve as the next Air Force One.
“For Republicans and I think also people in the MAGA crowd, what makes them nervous is, of course, Qatar has been a funder of Hamas, they’ve been a funder of Hezbollah, they’ve been a funder of terrorist states for a very long time,” Scarborough warned. “So obviously they’re expressing concerns, Republicans are expressing concerns.”
Qatar’s long-standing ties to extremist groups are well documented. The Gulf nation has faced international criticism for allegedly financing Hamas, the Palestinian militant group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU. It’s also been accused of giving safe harbor to members of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group responsible for numerous attacks in the Middle East.
Despite these concerns, Trump appears undeterred—leaning further into his signature “art of the deal” style, even on the global stage.
Scarborough pointed out that Trump is personally involving himself in global business deals in ways no president has before—and that’s shaking up both foreign policy and the markets.
“When people are talking about the stock market going down to 20,000 and, and, and the U.S. economy melting down,” Scarborough said, “people want to invest in the United States of America, and they’re going to look for excuses to invest in the United States of America.”
He admitted Trump’s aggressive deal-making has pushed the markets back up—but warned that the approach is anything but stable.
“The stock market’s going to go back up and we’re up to 40,000, you know, got down to 36,000. It’s up to 42,000, and he has countries that are desperate to make deals with him right now, and we’ve seen this in foreign policy as well,” Scarborough said.
He also brought up Trump’s past actions with Iran—specifically the killing of top military commander Qasem Soleimani.
“I know a lot of us a lot of us were talking about how dangerous this was and how much it upped the ante, and, of course, we found out that that actually put the Iranians back on their heels, and now they’re willing to deal with him.”
But Scarborough warned that Trump’s tactics—demanding something in every deal and pushing others into corners—could backfire.
“I’m saying this is chaos,” he said. “It is hard for foreign leaders to follow, it’s hard for people in Wall Street to follow. You just wonder if this isn’t just, again, his approach to economics and his approach to foreign policy, because he believes he can intimidate people into making deals with him.”
Scarborough’s message was clear: what Trump calls deal-making, others are seeing as dangerous instability.
Watch the segment below from MSNBC:
