Trump loves the 'gruesome pictures' of ICE brutality: former adviser

A discussion on the damage Department of Homeland Security head Kristi Noem and Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller are doing to the administration with their extremist anti-immigrant policies led a former adviser to the president to claim that Trump accepts it because he believes it helps him with bigger issues.

On MS NOW’s “Morning Joe”, co-host Joe Scarborough spoke with branding expert Donny Deutsch about Trump’s plunging poll numbers which, in large part, stem from the images of ICE agents using small children as “bait” to grab their parents, pulling women from cars and carrying them away and breaking into homes to snatch innocent people.

As Deutsch pointed out, “It kind of, if your stomach doesn't hurt when you see what's going on there, you've got to kind of do a stomach check because it's just wrong. There's right, there's wrong, there's humane, there's inhumane. It's just not who we are.”

Turning to Anthony Scaramucci, who has known Trump for decades, and who served in the first Trump administration as the communications director, host Scarborough asked if the president is aware of the damage being done by members of his inner circle to the White House’s prospects for the next three years.“

To me, I do think it's a distraction,” Scaramucci responded. “I was at the World Economic Forum this week. I do think the Greenland thing is a distraction, and I think it really all does come down to the [Jeffrey] Epstein files. And remember, there could be immigration issues for the president's family inside the Epstein files, among other things.”

“So all of this stuff is tied together,” he continued. “And even if the president, you know, when he's talking to you or a CEO somewhere is saying he doesn't like the gruesome pictures. Trust me, he likes the gruesome pictures because the gruesome pictures keeps the Epstein files away from the front and center of the mainstream media.”

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