Appearing on Monday’s Deadline: White House, MSNBC contributor and frequent guest Eddie Glaude declared that the Donald Trump administration deportation policy is “evil” and “monstrous behavior” and suggested that Americans who support it have become a “monster.”
In contrast with ignoring the record number of migrant deaths when they were happening during the Joe Biden administration, the segment began with reporter Jacob Soboroff recalling the sad story of a mother and daughter who were deported back to Guatemala, with the mother passing away soon afterwards. Estela Ramos and her daughter Nory had lost their asylum case in 2019, but were only just recently required to leave the country.
When host Nicolle Wallace let Glaude respond to the story, he lamented:
… we can talk about this in terms of policy questions and the politics and the like — it’s evil. And the question for us is: “Will you be complicit in it?” And you can be complicit in the evil just by indifference or your silence. But in the face of that story, particularly for these people who are — who are billboarding their Christian commitments right now — that claim to be warriors for Christ. And they can stand by and let that story just blow by them and justify the policies that — that produced that outcome.
When leftists want to keep illegal aliens in the country ad infinitum, the first card they play is the Christianity card. He added some Bidenesque “soul of the nation” language:
There’s something broken at the heart. The soul has been corrupted — of the nation. And it’s not just simply because of Donald Trump. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Underneath this is this country — it’s us. And you try to hold back the anger and the rage and the tears because that’s what they want, right? But damn, she’s lost her mom.
Wallace recalled the signs held up at Trump rallies calling for mass deportation as she followed up:
I think that the piece of it that is … that Jacob certainly as a journalist always includes in the picture is that people voted for mass deportations with such enthusiasm. They carried the signs, like, this wasn’t a secret part of Trump 2.0. But to me that was when the train left the station in terms of our human connection being lost because any human — movement of that many humans was going to result in tragedy, and that that became such a celebrated part of our politics in 2024 to the degree that that was the word on the placard — it might have been when we broke.
As he began his response, Glaude invoked slavery:
You know, when you have dehumanization at the heart of the politics, right? The human element falls out. You can do whatever you want to do — you can separate moms and dads, you can sell children, you can separate, you know, I’m thinking about the conditions under which would lead people to enslave people — the conditions under which would lead people to bomb people — the conditions under which to lead people to separate children from their parents, right?
It’s at this point where someone should give him a Breathalyzer test.
He then suggested that Trump supporters are monsters:
You don’t see them as your child. You don’t see them in the same way you see the people you love, right? So the hatred blinds you to the humanity right in front of you, and you become the monster. I mean, we are awash with monstrous behavior that suggests that what Trumpism and MAGA-ism — what they have tapped into is something that has been a part of this nation since its founding that has allowed us to look the evil of what we’ve done squarely in the face and to move on. And here we are in a moment, and you have to report on it every single day where this stuff is happening all around us and people are getting on with their lives. And you wonder how.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
September 15, 2025
5:48 p.m. Eastern
NICOLLE WALLACE: I don’t know if you two know this, but I — I think of you two as — I mean, Jacob (Soboroff), you’re an award-winning journalist — you’re lots of other things, but you’re also sort of my correspondent of humanity. And, Eddie (Glaude), I feel like when there’s something that questions — that makes me question what other humans can do to other humans, you’re someone I always need at this table. And to watch Nory’s (Nory Ramos) story — and Nory’s mother is younger than me — to think of a mother leaving her daughter is, just at a human level, so awful, and I wonder what your thoughts are on how we hang on to our humanity and put it out there at a time when that doesn’t feel like a universally held value?
EDDIE GLAUDE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, I mean, that’s the question. We’ve done this so many times together, and, you know, first of all, I just always want to lift up Jacob for foregrounding these stories — for telling us about the human cost of these policy decisions, but I just can’t help but feel in my gut that Nory lost her mom, she’ll never see her again, she’ll never feel her hugs again, she’ll never hear her tell her she loves her, she can never tell her, “I love you,” she will have to grapple for the rest of her life with how her mother died, under what conditions her mother died.
And I just keep thinking that, you know, we can talk about this in terms of policy questions and the politics and the like — it’s evil. And the question for us is: “Will you be complicit in it?” And you can be complicit in the evil just by indifference or your silence. But in the face of that story, particularly for these people who are — who are billboarding their Christian commitments right now — that claim to be warriors for Christ. And they can stand by and let that story just blow by them and justify the policies that — that produced that outcome. There’s something broken at the heart. The soul has been corrupted — of the nation. And it’s not just simply because of Donald Trump. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Underneath this is this country — it’s us. And you try to hold back the anger and the rage and the tears because that’s what they want, right? But damn, she’s lost her mom.
WALLACE: And I always try to be cognizant when I ask you to say more if you actually want to, so I’ll come up with another question because I can’t tell in this moment, but I think that the piece of it that is — that we as — that Jacob certainly as a journalist always includes in the picture is that people voted for mass deportations with such enthusiasm. They carried the signs, like, this wasn’t a secret part of Trump 2.0. But to me that was when the train left the station in terms of our human connection being lost because any human — movement of that many humans was going to result in tragedy, and that that became such a celebrated part of our politics in 2024 to the degree that that was the word on the placard — it might have been when we broke.
GLAUDE: You know, when you have dehumanization at the heart of the politics, right? The human element falls out. You can do whatever you want to do — you can separate moms and dads, you can sell children, you can separate, you know, I’m thinking about the conditions under which would lead people to enslave people — the conditions under which would lead people to bomb people — the conditions under which to lead people to separate children from their parents, right?
You don’t see them as your child. You don’t see them in the same way you see the people you love, right? So the hatred blinds you to the humanity right in front of you, and you become the monster. I mean, we are awash with monstrous behavior that suggests that what Trumpism and MAGA-ism — what they have tapped into is something that has been a part of this nation since its founding that has allowed us to look the evil of what we’ve done squarely in the face and to move on. And here we are in a moment, and you have to report on it every single day where this stuff is happening all around us and people are getting on with their lives. And you wonder how.
