MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart argued on Friday night for more legal immigration and called for people who are coming into the country for skilled labor jobs to embody “American values.”

Capehart weighed in on this week’s MAGA infighting that resulted in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy drawing ire from conservative immigration hardliners on the issue of foreign nationals taking American jobs.

On H-1B visa workers taking jobs from Americans this week, Ramaswamy was scorned for slamming American culture. On Thursday, the venture capitalist tweeted that tech companies hire “foreign-born & first-generation engineers” over American citizens and it “isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit.” He added:

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.

Ramaswamy, Musk, and other prominent figures on the right have argued America should welcome the best and brightest from around the globe to improve the country.

On Friday’s edition of PBS NewsHour, Capehart said he would not be willing to outright agree with Ramaswamy while speaking with Lisa Desjardins. But he said the former GOP presidential candidate had sparked a “bigger conversation” that needed to be had.

Capehart added:

So, if Vivek has a problem with where our culture is right now, perhaps he should look in the mirror. He’s holding up that his own party is looking at now — is at war with each other. Maybe the way to solve some of the problems that he’s talking about is that if they actually start talking more genuinely from a policy perspective about the issues facing the country and, you know, the country does need the experts and their expertise to come to this country, get a solid education, and then because of our broken immigration system, have to take all of that knowledge that they learned here and bring it back home.

Desjardins asked, “Jonathan, you just said this sparks an even bigger conversation. What do you mean by that?”

Capehart replied:

Well, the bigger conversation – leave aside the cultural issue – but immigration. Like, we need to have more people in this country who are able to do the jobs that are here, but who also bring the values that reinforce American values.

Watch above via PBS.

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