MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow broke down in tears while reading a live update of “tender age” shelters on air.
The host of The Rachel Maddow Show couldn’t finish her report as she read details about how babies and toddlers were being separated from their parents and taken to shelters in Texas.
“I’m sorry. I think I’m going to have to hand this off,” she said during her Tuesday evening segment.
READ MORE: Babies and toddlers sent to ‘tender age’ shelters under Donald Trump’s child separations
Maddow later went on Twitter on the same evening and apologized for not being able to give her audience the full report.
“Ugh, I’m sorry. If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I’m on TV,” she wrote on the social media site. She included a thread of the details of the Associated Press report.
“What I was trying to do — when I suddenly couldn’t say/do anything — was read this lede.”
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It is estimated 2,300 children have been separated from their families over the last six weeks, and placed in cage-like detention facilities as part of a “zero tolerance” policy towards illegal migration.
READ MORE: How Canadians can help children separated from parents by U.S. border officials
“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” vice-president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service Kay Bellor told AP. “Toddlers are being detained.”
Maddow is one of several late-night hosts who have recently called out the Trump administration’s decision for U.S. border officials to separate children from their parents.
On Tuesday, talk show host Stephen Colbert criticized White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for not addressing Trump’s border separation policy during a press conference.
READ MORE: Here’s how Canada deals with migrant parents, children and detention
“Trump’s policy of taking immigrant children from their parents at the border … either you can be horrified or you can work for Donald Trump,” he said in the segment. “Sarah, you think you don’t want to talk about child separation policy? You don’t get to tag out here, Sarah. … You’re just Donald Trump’s mouth piece — or whatever part the lies comes out of.”
“First of all, no there isn’t. It’s complete BS. Secondly, since when did Donald Trump start caring about law?” he said in his segment.
On Wednesday, Trump announced he would sign an executive order to “solve the problem” of children being separated from their families at the U.S. southern border.
READ MORE: No clear plan on how to reunite thousands of children taken from parents — Trump officials
During a White House meeting with members of Congress, the president said, “We want to keep families together.”
— with files from AP
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