On Monday's installment of Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough went on a tirade against 'fat' ICE agents and slammed the agency for rushing training.
Scarborough called it 'ironic' that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth rallied against overweight military personnel just a few months ago, because photos of physically unfit ICE agents have been circulating online.
'It's so crazy after you have the Secretary of Defense - and yes, that's what it's called, Secretary of Defense - talking about quote, "fat" officers and "fat" members of the military,' Scarborough said.
'How ironic that we see all these fat, out of shape people that they push through... Instead of five months, they have these shortened training sessions, so they go out there and they're ill-equipped.'
The Morning Joe host's comments came in the wake of the killing of Renee Good, who was shot in the head by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis while she attempted to flee in her car surrounded by officers with their guns drawn.
Scarborough went on to say that ICE agents are not trained to engage with urban communities, unlike local police such as the NYPD or LAPD.
He attributed that lack of training to 'tragedy unfolding on the streets,' adding that 'we all predicted this was going to happen.'
'We all said, these guys are untrained!' Scarborough said. 'They're out of shape. They don't know the basics of law enforcement.'
On Monday's installment of Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough went on a tirade against 'fat' ICE agents and slammed the agency for rushing training
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is pictured here railing against overweight military personnel in late September
Scarborough called Hegseth's comments on overweight military personnel 'ironic' because of the prevalence of overweight ICE agents
He then said Trump's approval rating when it comes to immigration is 'plummeting,' due to the actions of ICE and the manner in which Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has been leading the agency.
According to the RealClearPolitics Poll Average on immigration, which took the average of more than one hundred polls on the issue, 50.5 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration, while 46.3 percent approve.
The numbers are much worse when looking at ICE specifically. In a YouGov poll that surveyed almost 2,700 American adults on January 7, the same day Good was fatally shot, 52 percent of respondents said they strongly or somewhat disapproved of ICE.
Just 39 percent said they strongly or somewhat approved of the agency. The remaining ten percent said they were unsure.
That represents a major drop in ICE's approval, which was thirty points higher in February 2025, during the beginning of Trump's second term, according to YouGov.
After Scarborough's comments on ICE's approval, Franklin Foer, a staff writer for the Atlantic who was a guest on the show, called ICE agents 'paramilitary squads being parachuted into cities where they're not welcome.'
He added that the agents have been able to 'operate with this alternative set of rules,' by covering their faces and using unmarked cars.
Foer conceded that the agents rightfully feel 'besieged,' because the communities in which they operate largely do not want them there.
A protestor confronts a Homeland Security officer during a protest
Scarborough's comments came in the wake of the killing of Renee Good, who was shot three times in the face by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis
Scarborough blamed the way Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has been handling ICE for the agency's plummeting approval rating
'It is something that I think you can only say has been designed to induce the sort of confrontations that we're seeing right now in Minneapolis,' he said.
Scarborough and his co-host, Mika Brzezinski, then began blaming Noem for moving ICE agents away from the border and into American cities, despite being untrained for those environments.
'They're breaking protocol right and left,' Brzezinski said.
She described the videos of the Good shooting, saying Ross, the ICE agent who killed her, should not have walked in front of the car or shot at the car, according to the agency's protocol.
Brzezinski particularly blasted Ross for 'fumbling with his phone and a weapon' before shooting Good. 'It's nuts,' she said.
Department of Homeland Security Policy states that officers 'may use deadly force only when the LEO [law enforcement officer] has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the LEO or to another person.'
Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said the ICE agent who shot Good broke Department of Homeland Security protocol multiple times during the encounter
Scarborough and Brzezinski, slammed the ICE agent who killed Good for 'fumbling with his phone and weapon' during the encounter. This image is from the video the agent took with his phone
In regard to fleeing suspects, the policy states: 'Deadly force shall not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject.
'However, deadly force is authorized to prevent the escape of the fleeing subject where the LEO has a reasonable belief that the subject poses a significant threat of death or serious physical harm to the LEO or others and such force is necessary to prevent escape.'
According to those guidelines, it is indeed possible to argue that Ross broke protocol. If he did, however, it was not due to rushed training, as he has been an ICE agent since 2015 and was not part of the agency's hiring surge in August.
