MSNBC personalities are still fixated on defending alleged MS-13 member and wife beater Kilmar Abrego Garcia with host Michael Steele on Tuesday comparing him to American citizens kidnapped by terrorists and MSNBC contributor Maria Hinojosa recently predicting that he will be seen as a "national hero."
On The Weeknight show on MSNBC, co-host Michael Steele compared Abrego Garcia to journalists arrested by Vladimir Putin in Russia or American citizens kidnapped in the Middle East.
Speaking with Congressman Glenn Ivey about the Maryland Democrat's recent trip to El Salvador in which he was not allowed by prison officials to see Abrego Garcia, Steele seemed to hint that the Donald Trump administration had treated the deportee similarly to how terrorists treat kidnapped Americans. The MSNBC host and alleged Republican posed:
I'm curious -- could you explain or maybe express -- how is this different -- because I've been thinking about this case in particular, but some of the others that are very similarly situated -- but 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? Our own government did this.
Even though Abrego Garcia was deported back to this home country (El Salvador) where the government is presumably free to release him if they did not believe him to be a national security danger, Steele added:
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. How -- is there any difference, in your view, as a member of Congress, when, you know, you're sitting here and you're getting intel and information on individuals around the globe who have been taken by, you know, taken hostage by groups and organizations and all this energy to try to get them back, I find 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 streets and putting them in foreign prisons. This is the part that's killing me.
It was not mentioned that Abrego Garcia has previously been accused by his wife of violently abusing her before she began pushing for his return to the U.S.
And just over a week ago, on The Weekend: Primetime, MSNBC contributor and public-radio host Maria Hinojosa went so far as to predict that the alleged MS-13 gang member will be seen as a "national hero" versus the Trump administration. She asserted:
...we have just witnessed how this father of three from El Salvador has now been painted before our very eyes as some kind of international terrorist where state secrets are now involved and national security is now involved. And the truth is, is that the administration has not proven anything. It's not giving any facts about this. And so, like the judge, we're just having to trust that the government is telling the truth.
After noting that some who have been detained by the Trump administration do not have criminal records, she predicted: "Interestingly, the entire world knows the name Kilmar Abrego Garcia. At some point, he will come out either a national or an international hero, and Donald Trump will continue to be the President who defied the Supreme Court and led us to a constitutional crisis in this country."
PS: On her radio show Latino USA, Hinojosa recently devoted a segment pleading the case of pro-Hamas protester Mahmoud Khalil.
Transcripts follow:
MSNBC's The Weeknight
May 27, 2025
7:46 p.m. Eastern
CONGRESSMAN GLENN IVEY (D-MD): But the focus really needs to be on the Trump administration because, at the end of the day, Bukele and the government of El Salvador -- if Trump got on the phone and said, "Okay, send him back," he'd be here in a matter of hours. So keeping the Trump administration in the spotlight and making sure we keep pressing them to comply with the Supreme Court order and the other judicial orders not just in Kilmar's case but in others. That's what we need to focus on.
MICHAEL STEELE, CO-HOST: I'm curious -- could you explain or maybe express -- how is this different -- because I've been thinking about this case in particular, but some of the others that are very similarly situated -- but how is this different from when Putin grabs a journalist?
SYMONE SANDERS, CO-HOST: Mmm.
STEELE: 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? Our own government did this.
CONGRESSMAN IVEY: Mm-hm.
STEELE: 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. How -- is there any difference, in your view, as a member of Congress, when, you know, you're sitting here and you're getting intel and information on individuals around the globe who have been taken by, you know, taken hostage by groups and organizations and all this energy to try to get them back, I find we're doing the exact same thing here in the U.S. now --
CONGRESSMAN IVEY: Yeah, we -- we --
STEELE: -- with our own government. We're petitioning our government to stop seizing people and grabbing them off the streets and putting them in foreign prisons.
CONGRESSMAN IVEY: Yeah.
STEELE: This is the part that's killing me.
(...)
MSNBC's The Weekend: Primetime
May 17, 2025
7:43 p.m. Eastern
MARIA HINOJOSA MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: And I think what we have to understand is that all of us in the United States of America -- we have just witnessed how this father of three from El Salvador has now been painted before our very eyes as some kind of international terrorist where state secrets are now involved and national security is now involved. And the truth is, is that the administration has not proven anything. It's not giving any facts about this. And so, like the judge, we're just having to trust that the government is telling the truth.
ANTONIA HYLTON, CO-HOST: Maria, you kind of -- you talked about the image that's being painted of Kilmar over these last several weeks -- what did you make earlier this week of Secretary Kristi Noem in a hearing really struggling to answer direct questions about that photoshopped image that the President has held up of the fake MS-13 tattoos that, you know, at one point he believed were on Kilmar's hand we now know are fake? And she was really struggling to just directly acknowledge that that was a falsified image. Do you see that as part of the kind of storytelling this administration is trying to do around people like Kilmar Abrego Garcia?
HINOJOSA: Yeah. and, you know, the problem is that people are hearing these messages, right, that these people like Kilmar are the "worst of the worst" -- the most scariest people who have to be taken either to CECOT in El Salvador or in Guantanamo. And what we know is that the government has yet to prove whether or not the majority of these people have any criminal records. I need to tell you I was just in an immigrant detention facility -- we're going to drop an exclusive report next week. And the majority of the people who are in this detention facility in Colorado are -- have broken no laws except for being here in the United States without documents. Interestingly, the entire world knows the name Kilmar Abrego Garcia. At some point, he will come out either a national or an international hero, and Donald Trump will continue to be the President who defied the Supreme Court and led us to a constitutional crisis in this country.
