During a sit-down interview with MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden responded to President Donald Trump’s handling of the United States-Mexico border.

Biden said Trump’s policy of holding asylum seekers is an “attempt to scare the living hell out of the American people” by making asylum-seekers look like criminals.

“A pure, total attempt to scare the living hell out of the American people, to make them into what he calls them criminals and terrorists and they’re drug dealers and they’re all bad, and just to appeal to his base, his base which says, ‘Not in my house. Not in my backyard,'” Biden told Brzezinski in the interview which aired Tuesday.

“These are people that have resilience, they have optimism, they have absolute determination,” he added. “They believe. That’s why we should immediately make sure every DREAMer is here and try to direct pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent