General Barry McCaffrey, now retired, appeared on MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson to discuss Donald Trump’s jaw-dropping comments on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
JACKSON: MSNBC military analyst and retired four-star general Barry Mccaffrey, who is joining us here. General Mccaffrey, thank you for being here. President Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin is really backing the headlines in a big
way. You heard what he said about Putin and Bill O'Reilly's comments that Putin is a killer. How concerned are you about not just what the president is saying but the relationship that the U.S. Is going to have with Russia, where that's going to go from here?
MCCAFFREY: Hallie, I'm actually incredulous that the president would make a statement like that. One could argue that's the most anti-american statement ever made by the president of the United States, to confuse American values with Putin, who is running a criminal oligarchy, who kills people abroad and at home, who imprisons journalists and takes away business property, who shares it with his former K.G.B. Agents, who invades and seizes crimea in eastern Ukraine, this is an astonishing state of affairs. It's hard to know what to think about it.
JACKSON: You clearly have very strong feelings about this, general. But you just listened to Vice President Pence defending him.
MCCAFFREY: I'm glad I'm not vice president of the United States. The president is now headed to centcom. The troops he'll be visiting have been fighting to defend America to 15 years, we've had 16,000 killed and wounded to try to protect this country. So for the president of the United States to talk about an equivalency between Putin and our killers is simply unbelievable to me.
General McCaffrey is a man who knows what he's talking about:
Barry McCaffrey served in the United States Army for 32 years. When he retired in 1996, he was the most decorated General serving in the United States Army, having been awarded 3 Purple Heart Medals for wounds received in combat, 2 Distinguished Service Crosses (the nation’s second highest award for valor), and 2 Silver Stars for valor. He served overseas for more than 12 years ---and 4 combat tours with the 82nd Abn Division, the Vietnamese Airborne Division, the 1st Cavalry Division, and the 24th Mech Infantry Division.
FOR FIVE YEARS AFTER LEAVING THE MILITARY, GENERAL MCCAFFREY SERVED AS THE DIRECTOR OF THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY (ONDCP).
Upon leaving government service, he served as the Bradley Distinguished Professor of International Security Studies from 2001-2005; and an Adjunct Professor of International Security Studies from 2006-2010 at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. He served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences from 1973-1976 teaching American Government and Comparative Politics.
WATCH: