MSNBC's Joe Scarborough slams Trump and supporters as 'openly racist'

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough took a shot at both President Trump and his supporters Friday, labeling both as “openly racist.” (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough took a shot at both President Trump and his supporters Friday, labeling both as “openly racist.”

The scathing comments during “Morning Joe,” which Scarborough co-hosts with Mika Brzezinski, came amid a highly controversial immigration debate over the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that led to children being separated from their parents after coming across the U.S. border.

Scarborough leveled that people “cannot say, ’Oh, I’m just supporting him because he’s giving them hell in Washington.' No, he’s been openly racist, just like we said back in December of 2015, openly racist.

“And if you support him, then you’re supporting that, and you are that,” Scarborough continued. “It’s that simple. And that’s what we’ve come to now.”

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The host shared similar remarks earlier in the show, following a discussion about the whereabouts of the seperated children.

“It’s unbelievable. And you know, the wretchedness of what Donald Trump has done here,” Scarborough said. “And I must add, those who are supporting Donald Trump blindly, claiming that sending young children … young children to places 2,000 miles away from where their parents are is like sending them to summer camp … the wretchedness of that. That mindset, the wretchedness, the depravity.

“You do wonder what actually has happened to people who speak like that in defense of a president,” he said, adding that he “deserves no defense. Certainly not in this case.”

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Brzezinski said she thought Trump “will be forever remembered as the president who traumatized little children.”

“I mean, he has built up to this moment to the point where now he is the president of the United States of America who took our country on a collision course downhill, tearing at every seam, being the president who abused little children,” she said. “And you see in this White House a sinking ship.”

She further claimed that Trump changed course on immigration “because this is a massive PR failure” and the administration is concerned with “what it looks like.”

“It’s deranged, its abusive, its cruel, its evil and the entire world is watching,” she added.

Scarborough, a former GOP congressman from Florida, has not been shy in his recent criticisms of the Trump administration's immigration policy.

Speaking about White House press secretary Sarah Sanders’ June 14 press briefing – in which she sparred with reporters over the separation of families attempting to cross the border – Scarborough accused Sanders of excessive lying.

“So why is she lying this much?” Scarborough asked. “I know children are being ripped from their mother’s arms, even while they’re being breast-fed. 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,” he said.

The White House said those remarks were "inflammatory and unacceptable."

Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.