Joe Scarborough: 'Evil Reigns' in Trump Regime, ICE Detention Compared to USSR

On Friday's Morning Joe, MS NOW co-host Joe Scarborough declared that "evil still reigns" in the Donald Trump administration as he excoriated ICE's efforts to deport illegal immigrants. He also cheered left-wing agitators in Minneapolis and gave them credit for derailing the conservative Project 2025 agenda.

After complaining about illegal aliens being put in "internment camps," he went on to declare ICE's actions to be "evil." He even tried to rationalize his use of the word "evil" by invoking President Ronald Reagan the Soviet Union as an "Evil Empire." Trying to deport illegal immigrants was compared to a "Gulag Archipelago." Here's Scarborough:

So, yes, evil still reigns across parts of this administration, especially as it pertains to ICE. And I don't -- people can follow my political career over the past 30 years -- my public career over the past 30 years -- I very rarely use the term "evil." I had no problem with Donald Trump call -- I mean, when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire." Well, what ICE has been doing to human beings in America is evil.

It's not the first time this man has called Trump "evil." Scarborough turned it up to 11. There's not just family separation, there's implied mass murder: "There are a lot of children who have basically been orphaned because of this administration."

After the MS NOW host called for Congress to go after federal agents involved in several shooting deaths, leftist contributor Anand Giridharadas complained that wealthy people did not stand up to President Trump, leaving it to average Americans to protest "Gestapo ICE raids" actions by ICE and say "no to authoritarianism."

Scarborough then took a shot at Elon Musk for taking apart USAID as he again celebrated left-wing agitators:

A trillionaire was afraid to stand up to Donald Trump. A trillionaire used his power to starve the poorest people on the planet, and yet 21, 22-year-old college students -- moms and dads, grandparents -- they went out in force in Minneapolis, and they said enough.... They said enough and they pushed back. And I will tell you, the history books will show that the charge of Project 2025, it was destroyed in the snows of Minneapolis. And that's when everything started falling apart.

Transcript follows:

MS NOW's Morning Joe

November 6, 2026

6:28 a.m. Eastern

JOE SCARBOROUGH: And there are a lot of people who are in internment camps as we speak. There are a lot of families that have been separated. There are a lot of children who have basically been orphaned because of this administration. There are a lot of husbands and wives who love each other desperately who are living separately now because of this administration despite the fact they both came to America with legal work visas.

There are people with work visas right now that are being told their work visas need to be double checked, to come in and let them look and make sure everything is in line. Those people go in, they get dragged out and put in internment camps and sent to countries that aren't even where they're from.

So, yes, evil still reigns across parts of this administration, especially as it pertains to ICE. And I don't -- people can follow my political career over the past 30 years -- my public career over the past 30 years -- I very rarely use the term "evil." I had no problem with Donald Trump call -- I mean, when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire." Well, what ICE has been doing to human beings in America is evil.

And that does continue. So we have to continue pushing back against that. But, in many other ways, this democracy is moving forward. And we now at least have a chance for a  Democratic Senate and a Democratic Congress to find out who were behind those masks that gunned down and killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good and --

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, and --

BRZEZINSKI: And many more.

SCARBOROUGH: -- in Maine and in Houston, Texas. We at least have a fighting chance for justice for those masked people out of control who are killing Americans and immigrants in the streets of America.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, MS NOW CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah. And, Joe, you're right about the judges being heroic. And I would add to that, when you think about the kind of histamine reaction that we had to this authoritarian attempt over these years, I think one of the surprises that maybe neither of us would have anticipated 10 years ago was that it was a lot of regular people with the least power who had the most courage, right? It was -- a lot people you think might have had courage, who ran universities and law firms and giant corporations, people with F.U. money.

It turned out there was no F.U. money in American life. There was no level of wealth where those folks could have courage. But people in Minneapolis, people all around this country organizing to protect their neighbors from ICE raids, people in Latino communities who gave Trump a try one, two or three times and then refused to be part of these Gestapo ICE raids and complicit in them. Regular people with everything on the line said no -- said no to authoritarianism -- to no to being ruled, no to oligarchy.

SCARBOROUGH: Think, think, think about this -- and history will record this as well. A trillionaire was afraid to stand up to Donald Trump. A trillionaire used his power to starve the poorest people on the planet, and yet 21, 22-year-old college students -- moms and dads, grandparents -- they went out in force in Minneapolis, and they said enough.

BRZEZINSKI: And they voted early.

SCARBOROUGH: They said enough and they pushed back. And I will tell you, the history books will show that the charge of Project 2025, it was destroyed in the snows of Minneapolis. And that's when everything started falling apart. And after that, the Epstein files and after that, the Iran war and after that, runaway inflation, the highest grocery prices ever, gas prices out of control, diesel prices out of control. It all stacked on top of each other. But make no mistake, the resistance, it really began in earnest in the snows of Minneapolis, and history will record it as such.