Thomas Friedman said the resignation of Ret. Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser showed it was never taken seriously that the Russians "hacked our election."



"Trump actually tweeted out some positive encouragement of this. Did the two of them cook this up all along?" Friedman asked of Flynn and Trump.



"We have never taken seriously from the very beginning Russia hacked our election," the New York Times scribe said on Morning Joe Tuesday. "That was a 9/11 scale event. They attacked the core of our democracy. That was a Pearl Harbor scale event."



From today's broadcast of Morning Joe on MSNBC:





JOE SCARBOROUGH: The only question I would ask you to start with is it is incredible that there is anyway that this president could not have known about this conversation that the White House had been warned about a month ago.



THOMAS FRIEDMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: I share Mika's real outrage on this issue. I don't care what he told Pence. We only care what he told Pence because Pence went out and basically mislead the public on Face the Nation.



The issue is what did he tell Trump? Did he and Trump actually cook up this whole thing after the Russians did not respond harshly to the eviction of their spies and diplomats? Trump actually tweeted out some positive encouragement of this. Did the two of them cook this up all along? It gets, Joe, to two other issues. The first is we have never taken seriously from the very beginning Russia hacked our election. That was a 9/11 scale event. They attacked the core of our democracy. That was a Pearl Harbor scale event. Can you imagine if Hillary Clinton were where Trump was, what the right would be doing on this issue? This goes to the very core of our democracy.

The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 14, 2017