Rachel Maddow opened her show on Friday by addressing President Donald Trump’s reaction to a report from The New York Times about a secret Pentagon briefing on U.S.-China war plans, which was supposed to be given to tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The briefing was canceled after the report came out, and Maddow expressed frustration with Trump’s claimed ignorance. “The New York Times explained it in terms that even a regular newspaper reader could understand,” she said. “They spelled it out so simply, you might think they were using crayon!”
She read an excerpt from the Times’ report, which explained that if a country learned about the U.S. war plans, it could strengthen its defenses, making those plans less effective. “That’s where they switch to crayon,” Maddow said. “If you show your war plan to a foreign country, they can fix their weaknesses, making it less likely your plan will work.”
Maddow continued to criticize Trump, who said he didn’t know about the planned briefing until he saw it in The New York Times. “He didn’t know about it, just heard about it from the paper,” she remarked.
She also took aim at both Trump and Musk, calling Musk “more in bed with the Chinese government than any other American businessperson.”
Maddow’s final message was sarcastic but clear: “If you have a war plan, don’t show it to the country you might go to war with. It’ll make your plan useless. Get it? Do you want me to say it slower? The Times might as well have put it in all caps with pictures.”
She wrapped up by praising the journalists who broke the story, saying their work likely stopped the briefing from happening. “That’s why journalism is important,” she concluded.
Watch Maddow’s full monologue below from MSNBC:
