Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and current MSNBC analyst, came under fire for comparing the Trump administration's deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia without due process to hostile forces kidnapping Americans in Russia or the Middle East.
Garcia is an undocumented Venezuelan migrant living with his American citizen wife in Maryland, who was "mistakenly" deported to a high-security prison in El Salvador two months ago. On Tuesday, the Trump administration asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit calling for Garcia's return to the United States.
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"How is this different from when Putin grabs a journalist or some, you know, rogue group in the Middle East grabs an American, and we're sitting here fighting to try to get them back," Steele said during a segment with Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) who recently traveled to El Salvador but was denied a meeting with the deportee.
Steele continued, "Our own government did this. Our own government snatched him up and put him in harm’s way and now refuses to do what it must do and should do to get him back home.
"We’re doing the exact same thing here in the U.S. now, with our own government. We’re petitioning our government to stop seizing people and grabbing them off the street and putting them in foreign prisons."
The account @MediaLies on X wrote, "MSNBC host Michael Steele claims that Trump deporting illegal aliens compares to Putin kidnapping journalists. First off, no. Second off, these people need to check into a mental facility. In no way are these two things comparable, and it's only posed in this manner to instill fear in the American people."
MAGA acolyte Dinesh D'Souza parroted Trump by calling Steele "a low-IQ guy."
He continued writing that "largely on account of his race, [Steele] was absurdly elevated in the GOP. He proceeded to demonstrate his utter incompetence as GOP chair. Now he peddles snake oil to the dummies on MSNBC."
Watch the clip below via MSNBC.