On Sunday’s The Weekend on MS NOW, the very partisan co-host Jonathan Capehart accused President Trump of displaying a “blasé attitude" toward war deaths. The curious part: Capehart had just aired a clip in which Trump described such deaths as “the sad part of war” and “the bad part of war.” Capehart was reacting to Trump’s appearance Friday at Dover Air Force Base, where the president attended the dignified transfer of six Americans killed in the war. Asked by a reporter whether he might have to return to Dover for additional transfers, Trump said he would “hate” to do so, while acknowledging the grim reality of wartime casualties. REPORTER: Are you worried you're going to have to end up coming back to Dover for more of these dignified transfers? TRUMP: I'd hate to do it. But it's a part of war, isn't it? Who are you with? REPORTER: The Washington Post. TRUMP: Would you say it's part of war? REPORTER: Deaths are a part of war, yeah. TRUMP: It's a part of war. It's the sad part of war. It's the bad part of war. Despite that clip, Capehart insisted: CAPEHART: That response is consistent with the blasé attitude Trump has often shown when talking about the costs of war. If Joe Biden had said the same thing—that deaths are the “sad” and “bad” part of war—liberal media commentators would likely have hailed the remark as Churchillian candor. MS NOW Host: Trump ‘Blasé’ on War Deaths—But Watch What He Actually Said pic.twitter.com/pztk8CH0Zb — Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) March 8, 2026 The segment then shifted to questioning Trump’s broader war aims against Iran. Co-host Eugene Daniels cited a typical Washington Post report loaded with anonymous insiders dropping rhetorical bombs that Trump is "unlikely to oust the Islamic Republic's entrenched military and clerical establishment." Daniels suggested Trump had laid out “an unachievable goal,” asking former Biden deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer: “At what point does his . . . strategy become a fantasy?” Finer, who worked as a Washington Post reporter before working for Obama and Biden, replied that it appeared the administration had set “a pretty unrealistic goal.” The most absurd Breathalyzer-begging moment came when co-host Jackie Alemany, noting that Biden withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan and did not commit American ground troops to the Middle East during his presidency, asked Finer: “I mean, was Joe Biden more MAGA than Trump?” The remark drew laughter from the panel. But they were laughing with her, not at her.  Here's the transcript. MS NOW The Weekend 3/8/26 7:01 am EDT JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yesterday, in the United States, President Trump joined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer of six Americans killed in the war.  Here's what he told reporters when asked about the possibility of more American deaths.  REPORTER [on Air Force One]: Are you worried you're going to have to end up coming back to Dover for more of these dignified transfers? PRESIDENT TRUMP: I'd hate to do it. But it's a part of war, isn't it? Who are you with? REPORTER: The Washington Post.  TRUMP: Would you say it's part of war? REPORTER: Deaths are a part of war, yeah. TRUMP: It's a part of war. It's the sad part of war. It's the bad part of war. CAPEHART: That response is consistent with the blase attitude Trump has often shown when talking about the costs of war.  --- EUGENE DANIELS: Jon, the Washington Post reported that on an intel report completed a week before the war.  It said, quote, a classified report by the National Intelligence Council found that even a large-scale assault on Iran launched by the United States would be unlikely to oust the Islamic Republic's entrenched military and clerical establishment.  The findings, confirmed to The Washington Post by three people familiar with the report's contents, raise doubts about President Trump's declared plan to, quote, clean out Iran's leadership structure and install a ruler of his choosing.  The president has been saying that he is demanding an unconditional, total, surrender anyway, despite this report.  At what point does his, kind of, what feels like an unachievable goal, stop being a strategy and become a fantasy and entrench everybody in the region in that?  JONATHAN FINER [former Biden aide]: So, I don't get to read intelligence reports anymore. But to be honest, I'm not sure how closely the president and the people around him are reading intelligence reports either at this point. Because it does feel like they have set a pretty unrealistic goal. Although it honestly depends on when you ask them. There have been moments when the president seemed like he was ready to stop or negotiate and then would come out a few hours later and say, actually, I have this maximalist goal.  . . . JACKIE ALEMANY: Jon, before we are out of time, it is really hard to ignore the ideological shape-shifting of Trump right now and the MAGA movement.  When you are comparing the administration you served in versus Trump, Joe Biden obviously pulled out of the Afghanistan, pulled American troops out of Afghanistan, did not commit any American troops to the ground in the Middle East during his time.  President Trump has taken a number of military strikes so far and not followed a lot of the promises that he made on the campaign trail to end our foreign entanglements.  I mean, was Joe Biden more MAGA than Trump? [Laughter off camera] FINER: Well, look, I will say that the Biden administration, in which I served, did twice help defend Israel from Iranian ballistic missile attacks in 2024, quite successful defenses, but did not take offensive action against Iran. That was a significant difference.  And to me, though, the more apt comparison is between Trump's second-term approach to the Middle East and Trump's first term and his campaign promises related to the Middle East, in which he said, I'm going to be the president who avoids another Middle East war. You know, vote for Kamala Harris if you want to end up in war in the Middle East. I'm going to be the president who avoids the dumb mistakes of the past when we got involved in these quagmires, mainly focused on the Iraq war in 2003.  And yet here we are, a president who has totally abandoned those principles.