'Never seen a president talk like this': Ex-LA mayor appalled at Trump's 'immoral' attacks on immigrants

Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles and a current Democratic California gubernatorial candidate, told MSNBC's Hallie Jackson on Wednesday that he was absolutely appalled by President Donald Trump's vicious attacks on immigrants.

After playing a video clip in which Trump got a crowd of supporters to chant that MS-13 gang members were "animals" during a campaign rally, Villaraigosa simply said, "Jesus, I've never seen a president talk like this, calling people animals, rapists, criminals."

He then turned to Trump's new policy of separating undocumented parents who cross over the U.S.-Mexico border from their children.

"We've never done something like this at the border," he said. "Dividing parents from their children in this way, it's wrong, it's immoral."

Villaraigosa also hammered the Trump administration for claiming that separating children from their parents would serve as a "deterrent" to people entering the country illegally.

"It's a ridiculous point," he said. "These people are refugees. The vast majority of them. Well, at a minimum we need to treat them like refugees until we find out otherwise. So to separate them from their children this way, to not allow them to go through the process, is just wrong. It's immoral."

Watch the video below.