Scarborough: Trump is leading an 'undermining of democratic values'

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough tore into President TrumpDonald John TrumpHouse Democrat slams Donald Trump Jr. for ‘serious case of amnesia’ after testimony Skier Lindsey Vonn: I don’t want to represent Trump at Olympics Poll: 4 in 10 Republicans think senior Trump advisers had improper dealings with Russia MORE’s first year in office in a new op-ed for The Washington Post, warning that 2018 “will be the most consequential political year of our lives.”

Scarborough highlighted Trump’s attacks on the media, the charges brought against several of his former staffers in special counsel Robert MuellerRobert Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE’s probe and his claim that “both sides” were to blame for the violence at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. during Trump's first year in office.

“World leaders continue to watch dumbstruck as the United States retreats from organizations that were created following the allies’ victory over Hitler. Those same alliances that Trump now undermines with reckless tweets and discarded treaties carried the United States to victory in the Cold War,” Scarborough wrote.

“But this is a White House that heaps contempt on history. And so, America’s dangerous retreat from the world continues.”

Scarborough, a frequent critic of Trump who left the Republican party earlier this year, quoted British leader Winston Churchill’s World War II call for countries to band together.

“While Trump’s eroding of U.S. prestige across the globe is disturbing, it is his administration’s undermining of democratic values that poses an even greater threat to our Constitution and country,” Scarborough wrote.

“Borrowing again from Churchill, America’s constitutional norms tremble in the balance as Trump unleashes furious attacks on First Amendment protections, independent counsels and law enforcement officers who refuse to be bullied.”

Trump has expressed his admiration for Churchill in the past, including returning a bust of the leader to the Oval Office.