White House Attacks After Scarborough Compares Feds to Nazis

Joe Scarborough used to be a Republican Congressman from Florida, but now the co-host of the popular MSNBC show Morning Joe is one of President Donald Trump’s strongest critics.

On Friday, Scarborough lambasted Trump, Jeff Sessions and immigration enforcement officials for their new policies and practices used in dealing with undocumented immigrants entering the United States from Mexico.

In his latest criticism, Scarborough seemed to liken federal immigration officials to Nazis, and that didn’t go over too well in the White House.  After his show was over the White House press office called his comments “horribly insulting” and said that he was placing “a target” on the country’s “great law enforcement.”

In his Friday morning show, the popular TV host strongly denounced Trump’s immigration officials for their heartless new practice of separating children from their families when the adults are taken into custody for violation of U.S. immigration laws. Medical experts have said that this practice is likely to result in permanent damage to the children who are forcibly removed from their parents without any explanation.

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Scarborough cited several news reports that said Border Patrol agents were tricking parents, and misleading them about what would happen to their children. He said that U.S. Border Patrol agents have been falsely telling migrant families that their children were being taken away for a bath. In fact, the children are not given baths but are taken into custody and incarcerated.  The parents are not told what happened to their children, and they are not even allowed to say goodbye to them.  

“I know children are being marched away to showers, marched away to showers​, being told they are—just like the Nazis said that they were taking people to the showers and then they never came back,”​ Scarborough said. ​

“You think they would use another trick like hey, got a slurpee room over there we’re going to take them to get a slurpee,” Scarborough continued. “That would be better than we’re marching them to the showers and we’ll be right back and they never come back.”

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley issued a statement slamming Scarborough. “It is appalling that Joe Scarborough would compare sworn federal law enforcement officers—who put their lives on the line every day to keep American people safe—to Nazis,” she said.

Then she added, “This is the type of inflammatory and unacceptable rhetoric that puts a target on the backs of our great law enforcement. It is also horribly insulting to the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Nazi Holocaust. Not only is Scarborough’s rhetoric shameful, but his facts are categorically false.”

Scarborough’s statements were not false, and clearly the Trump administration doesn’t like it when the truth comes out about their inhumane and cruel policies that separate children from their parents.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.