Tom Brokaw Mocks Obama’s ISIS Coalition With Air Quotes

October 15th, 2014 9:30 AM

Veteran NBC News journalist Tom Brokaw appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and mocked President Obama’s so-called coalition of nations fighting ISIS.

Speaking on Wednesday morning, Brokaw used air quotes when describing the list of countries helping America fight ISIS before wondering “you see that whole list of people or countries lined up as our coalition partners against ISIS. What are they giving?”

The NBC journalist continued to mock Obama’s ISIS coalition:

They got a name on a billboard somewhere, but they're not putting troops on the ground. Germany doesn’t want to do airstrikes. Germany is more concerned about people leaving Germany, joining ISIS and then coming back into the country. Hamburg has always been a hotbed of Islamic rage. And so that’s their big concern. But boots on the ground, not going to go there. 

Kudos to Brokaw to be one of the few members of the liberal media to openly criticize Obama’s ISIS coalition for being mostly and failing to provide tangible support to help defeat the terrorist group.   

See relevant transcript below.

MSNBC’s Morning Joe

October 15, 2014

JOHN MEACHAM: Speaking of 25 years ago, you were in Berlin when the wall came down. How do you think looking back how’s the world developed? Has it surprised you? 

TOM BROKAW: I tell you what’s surprised me immediately was that everybody said, oh thank God it’s down, let’s move on with our business. NATO kind of drifted apart, kind of lost its spirit if you will. And I think that was a missed opportunity. If you go to Berlin now, a new generation is much more interested in what happened. They can't believe their parents were divided by that wall, that in effect, the German people were imprisoned on one half, on the other half they were free and prosperous. So there is a kind of a renewed interest in what happened at that time. My own judgment is in the post-Cold War years that we didn't do enough to keep NATO intact, not just militarily, but politically, and culturally and economically. Because these problems were going be coming. And how you stitch it back together now is pretty tricky. 

You see that whole list of people or countries lined up as our coalition partners against ISIS. What are they giving? They got a name on a billboard somewhere, but they're not putting troops on the ground. Germany doesn’t want to do airstrikes. Germany is more concerned about people leaving Germany, joining ISIS and then coming back into the country. Hamburg has always been a hotbed of Islamic rage. And so that’s their big concern. But boots on the ground, not going to go there.