Joe Scarborough thinks Trump might be Putin's 'hostage'

(Image credit: Screenshot/Morning Joe)

Running through the recent timeline of events led Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough to conclude Thursday morning that President Trump might be a "hostage" of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "You have Donald Trump in the Oval Office with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Kislyak, and the foreign minister, Lavrov, and that picture took place the day after James Comey was fired when the Russian story really exploded. Then he goes in, he reveals classified information. He doesn't let U.S. reporters in the room. I mean, you can go on and on," Scarborough said. "They make these decisions time and time again in a way that makes it appear that they're hostages, that he's Vladimir Putin's hostage. Why did they have that meeting in the Oval Office? Because Putin told Trump he needed that meeting in the Oval Office."

The most recent event that left Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski baffled — and that spurred Scarborough to raise this theory — was a report revealing that the Trump administration is thinking about returning two diplomatic compounds to the Russian government. The compounds were shut down by former President Barack Obama as punishment for Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election. "It kind of makes it hard to believe that Putin doesn't have anything on Trump," Brzezinski said. "There seems to be no guard rails here."