Willie Geist then introduced the always informative Michael Weiss, an expert on these sorts of foreign affairs as News Director for New Lines magazine. Weiss ostensibly called those who flatter Putin “useful idiots,” a term used to deride anyone perceived as propagandizing a cause without a complete understanding of a cause’s goals and who is cynically being used by the cause’s leaders.

“It is really important to emphasize that this sort of trope in American politics coming from the far right and also parts of the far left only feed into Moscow’s grand strategy here,” Weiss concluded.

“I’m so glad you used the word ‘useful idiot,’” Scarborough followed. “That’s what we called people in the cold war who were constantly apologizing for Soviet leaders.”

“We now have useful idiots on the Trump right that are apologizing for Vladimir Putin. The term fits them tightly, like a glove.”