Maddow connects Trump's NATO lies to Putin's claim that Hitler had to invade Poland

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow began her Monday show by connecting the dots between Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his hatred of NATO, including his claim that perhaps Poland deserved what happened when Adolf Hitler invaded them, starting World War II.

Trump has spent the better part of the last eight years incorrectly identifying how NATO is funded. It's unknown if he doesn't understand it or doesn't remember when his foreign policy advisers explained it to him.

Putin gave an interview with disgraced former Fox host Tucker Carlson with the Russian leader that began with such an extensive history lesson that Maddow said the majority of the American audience checked out and clicked off.

"For a part of the history lecture where Putin got to 1939," Maddow said of the Putin interview. "At which point, he then claimed in this interview that it was Poland who started World War II. Poland did it because even if Poland was cooperating with Hitler — they stopped cooperating with Hitler when Hitler needed them to cooperate most, and then they made Hitler attack them. We haven't had that sold to the American public. That happened in 1939. It hasn't happened since until now. And the reason Putin is trying to sell us this bizarre line now, is more worrying than it is interesting."

Maddow confessed it might have been a boring interview, but it's still worrying.

She quoted from a New Yorker piece that summed up the interview, describing Putin's conspiracy about Poland and Hitler. Poland, he claimed, forced Hitler to start World War II. Hitler had no choice but to attack Poland. They forced him to, Putin claimed, because they refused to do whatever Hitler demanded. It's a description that Maddow found shocking.

"The idea that the victim of the attack serves as its instigator by forcing the hand of the aggressor is Putin's explanation. This is the first time Putin described Hitler's aggression in these same terms," Maddow explained. "The way Putin described the beginning of the Second World War suggests that in his mind, he might see himself as Hitler but perhaps one that can make end roads into the United States and create an alliance with its presumed future president."

Right now, Putin is fighting with the one country between Russia and Poland because they refused to allow Russia to invade and take over the country.

"To Americans, he's saying that Poland is the real aggressor that we should blame for World War II, and he's starting to use the same language," Maddow continued. "Starting to cite the same reasons he did to invade Ukraine as Germany invaded Poland. We're a NATO country, and if Putin decides that, he doesn't just want to invade Ukraine, which he's done twice now since 2014, and he just doesn't want to invade Georgia and Moldova as well — if he decides, as he's been threatening, that he is going to start shooting at Poland too or take land from Poland — that will be Putin and Russia attacking NATO. Which would oblige the other 30 NATO countries to attack Russia."

Then she paused.

"Or maybe not," she said, pointing to Trump's comments less than 24 hours later saying that he would "encourage" Russia to attack a NATO ally.

Monday, Trump doubled down on the claim. Then, he mistakenly identified Ukraine as a NATO country, which it is not.

See Maddow's opener below or at the link here.