On Wednesday's Morning Joe, MS NOW host Joe Scarborough invoked the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham as he compared the change in public opinion after recent ICE killings to the change in the opinions of "moderate whites" in the 1960s to be more supportive of civil rights for blacks.
His comments came during a discussion of recent surveys suggesting that the public has turned against President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement policies. Scarborough prefaced his remarks by claiming that he was "drawing no parallels between the two events" before then proceeding to do just that.
Turning to show regular Mike Barnicle, Scarborough declared:
I'm drawing no parallels between the two events, though they have had a significant impact on where the American people go. You are old enough -- and I mean this with the greatest of respect -- you're old enough to remember what happened after the church bombing in Birmingham -- the 16th Street church bombing in Birmingham -- that motivated, quote, "moderate whites," to get up off their ass and start supporting civil rights in a way that black people were not treated like third-class citizens.
He then referred to the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis as "execution-style killings" and lamented that he does not yet feel comfortable using the worst "murder" as he added:
Same thing with the Freedom Riders. Selma. Those things awakened a nation. Here you just got a sense that the combination of Renee Good and Alex Pretti would awaken a sleeping nation -- and I say that not melodramatically at all -- awaken a sleeping nation. And the combination of those two killings and the execution-style -- what to me looked like an execution-style killing -- I would like to use a stronger word, but I'll wait for a jury in the future to make that determination -- awaken this nation.
Even though some American citizens have received rough treatment from federal agents largely because they chose to harass those agents, co-host Mika Brezinski described such agitators as having been "sucked into" violent interactions:
I mean, it is true that U.S. citizens got sucked into this and were treated terribly and murdered, and the investigations taken away from the state where it happened so that accountability isn't even real either. And that is frustrating, and everyone can see that with their eyes. But it's also what's happening to undocumented people, People here on American soil all get treated the same way, and they are given due process, and they have rights.
She then called ICE agents "thugs" and accused them of "murder," leading Scarborough to nudge her to be more careful with her wording. Here's Brzezinski:
And these ICE thugs just ran over everything that law enforcement is about. And nobody liked what they saw, whether it was undocumented or doc -- there may be a few very, you know, very hard liners on the right who think this is the right thing. But Donald Trump promised mass deportations like you've never seen them before. And he delivered. So now they want to take back on that word. Good luck. This was his campaign line. You're going to get mass deportations like you've never seen them before. And he was right.
The two then went back and forth:
SCARBOROUGH: Let me just say a couple of things. First of all, whether it was a murder or not -- you said "murdered" --whether it's a murder or not will be determined of course by a jury.
BRZEZINSKI: I would say, "execution-style killing." Is that a safer way of putting it?
SCARBOROUGH: That's what I said, that it looked like that, and a jury -- and that's why I said a jury will determine what -- if there's criminal connection to this. I suspect we will see that at some point.
Transcript follows:
MS NOW's Morning Joe
March 11, 2026
6:46 a.m. Eastern
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And, John, yesterday we get the news out of Doral that the White House is -- and, by the way, there's a smart political move. I've been looking at the TV camera for months saying they need to do this, so I'm not criticizing them for doing this. They did it like six months, nine months late, telling the Republicans, "Hey, don't use the term 'mass deportation'," which is interesting. You had told me earlier that the White House was telling the President several months ago, "Stop talking about mass deportation on the campaign trail -- it's killing us in the polls." Now, the White House is telling the Republicans, "Stop talking about mass deportation -- it's killing us in the polls."
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Yeah, a slow pivot, to be sure, but they seemingly -- seemingly got there.
SCARBOROUGH: That's an understatement. Yeah.
LEMIRE: The -- of course, this was such a staple of all of President Trump's remarks last year. And when they were focusing on deporting the so-called worst of the worst, it was still relatively popular. And certainly Americans like the idea of a closed Southern border, poll suggests. But as this got, you know, as the moves got more aggressive -- if it moved into like, your neighbors, your friends, you know, moms waiting to pick up their kids from school, it was all -- the American public was already souring on this last year -- the end of last year.
And then we add to it what happened in Minnesota -- the confrontations, the violence, the two American deaths. It has become politically toxic. The President's well underwater on this. There's finally been a realization from the White House: stop talking about it. He has largely stopped talking about it, at least for now. And now there's word to Congress, "Do the same as the midterms approach."
SCARBOROUGH: So, Mike, I'm drawing no parallels between the two events, though they have had a significant impact on where the American people go. You are old enough -- and I mean this with the greatest of respect -- you're old enough to remember what happened after the church bombing in Birmingham -- the 16th Street church bombing in Birmingham -- that motivated, quote, "moderate whites," to get up off their ass and start supporting civil rights in a way that black people were not treated like third-class citizens.
Same thing with the Freedom Riders. Selma. Those things awakened a nation. Here you just got a sense that the combination of Renee Good and Alex Pretti would awaken a sleeping nation -- and I say that not melodramatically at all -- awaken a sleeping nation. And the combination of those two killings and the execution-style -- what to me looked like an execution-style killing -- I would like to use a stronger word, but I'll wait for a jury in the future to make that determination -- awaken this nation.
MIKE BARNICLE, MS NOW CONTRIBUTOR: There's no doubt about that, and we came into this segment with a clip from Joe Rogan, who has clearly been awakened by a series of events, and I would attribute Joe Rogan's insight -- and I do believe it's insight -- into his sidewalk sense of what's going on in this country. Sure, he's making a lot of money. He's very popular. He's got millions of listeners and viewers and everything like that. But he has a sidewalk sense speaking to directly what you were just talking about. People don't like certain things, like a guy on the ground, his weapon taken away that he never displayed, I mean, shot eight times in the back.
SCARBOROUGH: Right.
BARNICLE: And the worst of the worst, you know, little kid, you know, with a five-year-old kid being shipped out, you know, to Mexico or wherever they sent him. People don't like this. And then you take the the fact that gas prices are up, groceries are up, health insurance costs are through the roof -- if you can get health insurance. It's all right there.
SCARBOROUGH: Shipped to Texas, and then the little boy was shipped back. But, yeah, it's all too much. And, you know, by the end of this, Mika, seven percent, CATO said that by the end of -- of -- of all of these things and they're still going on, only seven percent of the people that were being detained were the worst of the worst.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: And that's the point. I mean, it is true that U.S. citizens got sucked into this and were treated terribly and murdered, and the investigations taken away from the state where it happened so that accountability isn't even real either. And that is frustrating, and everyone can see that with their eyes. But it's also what's happening to undocumented people, People here on American soil all get treated the same way, and they are given due process, and they have rights.
And these ICE thugs just ran over everything that law enforcement is about. And nobody liked what they saw, whether it was undocumented or doc -- there may be a few very, you know, very hard liners on the right who think this is the right thing. But Donald Trump promised mass deportations like you've never seen them before. And he delivered. So now they want to take back on that word. Good luck. This was his campaign line. You're going to get mass deportations like you've never seen them before. And he was right.
SCARBOROUGH: Let me just say --
BRZEZINSKI: And now they're building deportation centers.
SCARBOROUGH: Let me just say a couple of things. First of all, whether it was a murder or not -- you said "murdered" --whether it's a murder or not will be determined of course by a jury.
BRZEZINSKI: I would say, "execution-style killing." Is that a safer way of putting it?
SCARBOROUGH: That's what I said, that it looked like that, and a jury -- and that's why I said a jury will determine what -- if there's criminal connection to this. I suspect we will see that at some point.
