Updated

MSNBC host Joy Reid blasted President Trump on Wednesday for his "deliberate cruelty" toward migrant children and suggested his supporters also "want to see this cruelty."

Ahead of the first Democratic primary debate, set to unspool on Wednesday night in Miami, Reid began by accusing Trump of "dismantling" America's message to the world and said he'd "replaced it" with "deliberate cruelty to children." While she invoked a "concentration camp" analogy also espoused by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Reid adamantly insisted that "horror" was taking place at the border.

"The cruelty is the point. His base wants to see this cruelty to prove to them that he's hurting the right people," Reid explained.

The "AM Joy" host went on to claim that a grim photograph of a migrant man and child lying dead in the river -- widely circulated this week -- is the "picture of what the world sees as America right now."

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"The world is watching us deteriorate and Donald Trump is leading it joyfully," Reid added. "This is what they want and this is what they want to show the world, that we're willing to be as cruel as you can possibly be, maximumly cruel to children, in order to scare brown people out of coming here."