'You joking?’ Ex-MSNBC host gobsmacked as former aide blames Trump scandal on 'bad staff'

Former MSNBC Mehdi Hasan was taken aback when a former White House official blamed Trump's staff for giving the president bad information.

Hasan, who founded independent news site Zeteo, asked former Trump chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney "to explain Trump's insane defense of the doctored image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's knuckles" as justification for deportation.

"He was the man sent illegally to El Salvador by the Trump administration," Hasan said of Abrego Garcia. "They tried to justify his deportation by saying he was an MS-13 gang leader. Trump put out a picture, he held up a picture of his knuckles, showing 'MS-13' photoshopped onto his hand."

Hasan continued, "Terry Moran of ABC News then did an interview with Donald Trump -- remarkable moment -- one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen in my life as a TV journalist. Trump held up this picture."

"And the picture's doctored," Mulvaney said.

"The picture's doctored, right?" Hasan repeated. "Trump insisted this was real! He insisted seven times it was real. You were his chief of staff. How do you deal with that insanity?"

"I don't consider it to be insanity," Mulvaney answered. "Here's what I consider it to be -- bad staff work."

Mehdi reacted with stunned surprise.

"Absolutely," Mulvaney continued. "Someone brought that picture into the President of the United States and said, 'Mr. President, here's the information.'"

"Are you joking me?" Hasan responded.

Mulvaney said the chief of staff's job is to make sure that the president gets the correct information, "because there's a lot of crap information out there, and you cannot let that information get in to the president of the United States."

Hasan wasn't buying it.

"A sane human being would look at that and say, 'Don't be silly, that's not a real picture!' A 4-year-old child could tell you that that is a Photoshopped image."

Watch the clip below or at this link.