Former President Donald Trump's insinuation that migrants have "bad genes" during his interview with right-wing talk radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday contains echoes of murderous hatred from the past, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned MSNBC's Jen Psaki.
"You are a child of immigrants yourself, also as Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, you oversee, you watch this issue closely," said Psaki, who previously served as White House press secretary. "I want to play something he said this morning and get your thoughts on that."
She played the clip.
"She has no clue," said Trump, speaking about Vice President Kamala Harris. "How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered more than one person and happily living in the United States. You know, a murderer, I believe this, it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now."
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"I mean, that's obviously disgusting, what he just said," said Psaki. "And I want to put politics aside here and ask you, kind of on a personal level, but also if I may, as the secretary of Homeland Security: how concerned are you with repetition of that rhetoric, and how migrant communities are being targeted by his supporters?"
Mayorkas made clear it hurt and scared him deeply.
"I think, Jen, you put it powerfully just a few minutes ago, and quite pointedly: We have parents who are scared to send their children to school because of this demonization, because of the false information to the targeting of migrants," said Mayorkas. "In our darkest chapters of world history, we have seen this demonization victimize millions of people. You reference my personal story. Six million Jews were killed in World War II. My mother lost a tremendous amount of family precisely because of this type of rhetoric, and the violence that it breeds."
Watch the video below or at the link here.