MSNBC’s Michael Steele Compares Trump Deportations to Putin Kidnapping Journalists

Steele: “I’m curious, could you explain or maybe express how is this different, because I’ve been thinking about this case in particular, but some of the others that are very similarly situated, how is this different from when Putin grabs a journalist or some, you know, rogue group in the Middle East grabs an American and we’re sitting here fighting to try to get them back. Our own government did this. Our own government snatched him up and put him in harm’s way, and now refuses to do what it must do and should do to get him back home. Is there any difference in your view as a member of Congress when, you know, you’re sitting here and you’re getting intel and information on individuals around the globe who’ve been taken by — you know, taken hostage by groups and organizations and all this energy to try to get them back? I find we’re doing the exact same thing here in the U.S. now, with our own government. We’re petitioning our government to stop seizing people and grabbing them off the streets and putting them in foreign prisons.”
Ivey: “Yeah.”
Steele: “This is the part that’s killing me.”
Ivey: “And don’t forget the Venezuelans. So you had of the 250 that were seized, 50 — this is according to the Cato Institute, had no charges against them here in the United States, in El Salvador or in Venezuela, and they were here in the United States legally. Their paperwork was in order. Yet, they still picked them up. They still deported them. And they still aren’t bringing them back, even though a court’s pressing them to do that. So, that’s about — oh, and they’re in a jail indefinitely —“
Steele: “Right.”
Ivey: “— having committed no crime or any kind of offense anywhere. They — they might not ever get out of there, depending on how this plays out.”
Steele: “I just don’t understand how the U.S. government and this president justifies that?”
Ivey: “Right.”
Steele: “How you look Americans in the eye and say, ‘We’ll put them in a prison and they’re never coming back home.’ And they say it with such ugly smugness. They say it with such disdain for the humanity of the individual. Oh, yeah, we’ve just shipped them off. And then you’ve got these people applauding it —“
Ivey: “Yeah.”
Steele: “— and saying it’s OK to do that, until they come for you.”