Rachel Maddow chokes up on-air over Trump administration's 'tender age' shelters
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow fought back tears Tuesday night as she struggled to read the Associated Press report about the Trump administration’s operation of “tender age” shelters for babies and young children.
“This is incredible,” Maddow began. “Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children …,” she trailed off, becoming emotional. After a brief pause, she continued “… to at least three …” but began to break down again. Maddow then attempted to cut away, asking her producers, “Can we put up the graphic of this? Thank you. Do we have it?”
While Maddow tried to finish reading the report, she realized she couldn’t and abruptly ended the segment by throwing to Lawrence O’Donnell, who was reporting live from Brownsville, Texas.
Maddow later apologized on Twitter for her breakdown and followed up with a thread of tweets explaining what she had a hard time saying out loud.
“Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents to at least three “tender age” shelters in South Texas…
2/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
“Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the “tender age” shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis…
3/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
“Decades after the nation’s child welfare system ended the use of orphanages over concerns about the lasting trauma to children, the administration is standing up new institutions to hold Central American toddlers that the government separated from their parents…
4/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
“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,” said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, “Toddlers are being detained.”
5/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
All from this Associated Press story that broke while I was on the air tonight, but which I was unable to read on the air:https://t.co/2VBLTVxvQq
Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile.
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
The Rachel Maddow Show airs weekdays at 9 p.m. on MSNBC.
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