Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough unloaded on the Trump administration’s “black hole” detention centers and asked what kind of “serial abuse” the White House was “hiding” as he protested that New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill was refused entry to a facility in her state.

Sherrill was turned away on Monday after arriving with members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation at Newark’s Delaney Hall detention center, a privately operated 1,000-bed facility currently holding roughly 300 detainees.

The delegation cited mounting concerns over alleged medical neglect and deteriorating living conditions that sparked a hunger strike inside the facility.

Opening Tuesday morning’s show, Scarborough unloaded on the administration for refusing lawmakers’ entry while slamming the detention facilities as “internment camps.”

“It remains extraordinary that governors of states, that United States senators, that members of congress who actually fund what many people inside are calling concentration camps – I think really internment camps certainly do fit – that they can’t get in,” he began.

He continued: “You’re a governor of a state where they have placed one of these internment camps. And the Trump administration does not allow you to go inside there? You’re a United States senator or a United States congressman, congresswoman, and you fund these internment sites, and they’re black holes. They’re black holes.”

The host then claimed that, per reporting, people are being kept in the facilities that “shouldn’t be held there” and were being held because the private owners were being “paid by the day” to hold detainees.

“So the longer they hold people, even if those people are held illegally, well, the more money they make,” Scarborough said.

The host then demanded that congressional lawmakers barred from such facilities should “fund nothing” and refuse to pass “a single bill” until they are granted entry.

“If we can do that about Medicare and Social Security, we can do that about human beings who are being brutalized inside these internment camps and brutalized so much that many leave saying that they’re like concentration camps!” he said.

“Now, how can we verify that?” he said. “Oh, wait, I’ll tell you how we can verify it, you can actually let members of Congress, United States senators, who funded those internment camps to go in and check on a daily basis to see how the people inside of there are being treated.”

“You know, we have enemies in wars that allow the Red Cross to go in and check, but we’re actually funding – I want to say it again – we’re actually funding as taxpayers through the United States congress, through the article one branch, these internment camps where people are being abused, where people are being held, when they should be freed!” he repeated.

“And this administration thinks they have a right, an Article Two branch thinks they have a right to tell an Article One branch or a governor who actually is hosting the internment camp in her state, that they don’t have a right to do that? That’s absolutely ridiculous!” Scarborough raged.

He continued: “There has to be transparency. What is the Trump administration hiding? What is the DHS hiding? What abuses? What serial abuses of human beings are they hiding? And I want to say, for everybody who’s stupid enough to say ‘well they’re here illegally’ – we don’t know that. You don’t know that. You’re just making that sh*t up. You don’t know who’s in there!”

The Department of Homeland Security has denied that a hunger strike is taking place, telling Fox News any indication of such is a “political stunt.”

Watch above via MS NOW.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!