'You're lying': MSNBC’s Brzezinski debunks right-wing 'Trump TV’s' bogus claims
Many right-wing media outlets, including Fox News, are aggressively defending the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran man and legal resident of the United States who is now in a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
A common talking point in right-wing media is that critics of Trump's mass deportations are soft on crime., but during a Thursday morning, April 17 broadcast, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski countered that "Trump TV" is badly distorting the issues in Garcia's case and other deportations.
Brzezinski told a "Morning Joe" panel that also included MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), "Trump TV will tell you that oh, the lefties on MSNBC, the Democrats, they don't want gang members to be thrown out of this country. Listen to them. That is not what we're saying. Just FYI, everybody wants criminals and gang members to be put into jail or put in a situation where they can't hurt people again. We're all with you there. You can't say that because you're lying when you do."
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Brzezinski continued, "What we are saying is people deserve the process that is due to them whether they are illegal immigrants or American citizens. And none of these people received any of that. And many of these people are being defamed by Trump TV, defamed by the president, defamed by (U.S. Attorney General) Pam Bondi, defamed and being labeled things they may not be."
The "Morning Joe" host stressed that Garcia has never been charged with anything and that Trump officials have yet to offer any substantial evidence linking him to gang violence.
Brzezinski told McCaskill and Rubin, "What has always been a little bit troubling to me in the coverage of the Abrego Garcia story is that that is a horrific story, and it absolutely — I guess, on a political level — might actually move the meter a little bit. It gives a name, a face, a family to this incredible story of our laws being pushed to the limit or maybe even broken. And at the same time, all these other deportations, Claire — in a way — calling Abrego Garcia a mistake is sort of giving subversive validation to these other deportees. All of their cases are legally questionable as well. And they continue. These flights continue."
McCaskill, a lawyer, agreed with Brzezinski — emphasizing that deportations need to mindful of the rule of law.
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McCaskill told Brzezinski and Rubin, "What this administration is doing, it is deciding that it's OK to be lawless. You know, keep in mind: there are ways to deport people in this country legally, and they have all kinds of ways they can, in fact, make these deportations go more quickly. But the things they're doing now, many of them are really running afoul of the majority of what America thinks…. Most Americans think criminals that are here illegally should be deported. Focus on that and quit doing this lawless stuff that, frankly, they're going to lose a big chunk, especially, of independent voters."
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