Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press, February 2012 (MSNBC)

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow implied during her Friday segment that President Donald Trump would not expel a number of Russian diplomats in response to a nerve gas attack in the U.K., three days before Trump did just that.

Maddow seemed to suggest that Trump fired Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster as national security advisor to avoid following through on his recommendation to expel the diplomats.

“[Mcmaster] and the National Security Council recommended to the president that he expel Russian diplomats on Wednesday, and then Trump fired him on Thursday,” Maddow said.

“And now, raise your hand if you think that President Trump is going to follow that recommendation and expel Russian diplomats from the United States as punishment for the nerve agent poisoning that he was too afraid to bring up person-to-person when he spoke to Vladimir Putin last week. You think he’s going to kick out their diplomats?”

Reports indicating Trump called Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on his reelection and did not mention the chemical attack seemingly bolstered Maddow’s suspicion that Trump would not respond forcefully to the aggression.

The Trump administration announced Monday the expulsion of 60 Russian intelligence officers serving as diplomats in the U.S. as well as the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle.

The decision was made in conjunction with 14 European allies, all of whom expelled Russian diplomats in response to Russia’s “destabilizing” behavior.

The concerted effort was prompted by an assassination attempt against a former Russian spy living in the U.K. The spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter remain in critical condition after being exposed to a rare chemical nerve agent believed to have originated in Russia.

Skripal was indicted in Russia for sharing information with British intelligence services and was later recovered by British authorities in a prisoner swap.