'Just pure evil': Scarborough hits Trump for comparing Jan. 6 'thugs' to Hamas’ hostages

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough didn't hold back in a Friday morning segment in which he condemned former President Donald Trump for calling rioters jailed for participating in the January 6 insurrection "hostages."

In the speech, the 45th president of the United States reiterated that he viewed his supporters serving time behind bars for crimes committed during the insurrection — which led to the deaths of five police officers — as "hostages, not prisoners."

"It was those people that took American flags that our servicemen and women have taken into battle for centuries to defend freedom here and across the world, they used those flags as instruments of death, hoping to kill officers," Scarborough said while speaking to fellow MSNBC host Willie Geist. "[Rioters] desecrated the people's house and tried to overthrow democracy because they believed Donald Trump's lies. There we have police officers being attacked from all sides, having their heads crushed in doors, police officers taken to the ground, having bear spray used against them. This is just pure evil."

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"[Trump has] gone from calling them political prisoners to now comparing them to Jews who were ripped out of their homes," Scarborough continued, taking a deep breath. "[B]eaten up, bludgeoned, grandmothers thrown on the back of pickup trucks and taken underground by Hamas terrorists, and they're the hostages. The world [is] talking about the hostages... and Donald Trump uses this time to compare those thugs that were beating up police officers with American flags, to compare them to Jews who were ripped from their their homes, raped, beaten, so many killed, but also so many taken to underground tunnels by a terrorist organization."

The former president has continued to stand by those convicted for their roles in the deadly January 6 riot. Earlier this year, he doubled down on his promise that, if elected to a second term in 2024, he would pardon a "large portion" of insurrectionists currently serving time in federal prison.

"I am inclined to pardon many of them... and it'll be very early on," Trump said at a New Hampshire town hall.

Watch the video of the segment below or via this link.

'This is pure evil': Joe Scarborough slams Trump for labeling Jan. 6 rioters as 'J6 hostages'

At a rally in Houston, Texas, on Thursday, Former President Donald Trump took the stage, yet again, to a version of the National Anthem recorded by imprisone...