Expert alarmed as Trump now taking a page from ISIS: 'Never seen anything like this'
A propaganda expert called out President Donald Trump's administration for "taking a page from ISIS" in social media campaigns boosting its immigration operations.
Robert Page, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, joined CNN's Jake Tapper on "The Lead" to dissect some recent social media posts from Trump's Department of Homeland Security, some of which seem to directly reference white nationalist and Nazi propaganda. Behind the overt references to those ideologies, Page added, there is an "even more disturbing" theme that ties them together.
"I spent years working with the FBI on ISIS and I have never seen anything like this coming from an official government organization," Page said, adding that the images depict a "heroic fight" by immigration agents against liberals and immigrants.
"The immigrants and liberals don't see it as heroic, but this is where I think they're taking a page, whether they know it or not, from ISIS," Page said. "What made ISIS far more deadly and powerful than al-Qaeda was these emotionally charged images of violence against Christians and jews. And what you are seeing here on the DHS website are over and over videos of essentially violence done, viewed as heroic violence against immigrants and liberal protesters. And this is why you're getting a violent force, because this is who they're recruiting."
Page's comments come at a time when the actions of Trump's immigration officials have stirred significant controversy. Last week, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer named Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother who was trying to leave the scene of an immigration raid in her car just blocks from her house.
Good's killing sparked protests nationwide and renewed calls for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to be impeached.