Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Samantha Schmidt.
Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to "tender age" shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018
“This has just come out from the Associated Press,” the MSNBC television host said as she began reading the report in front of her.
“This is incredible. Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children …”
Her voice catching, Maddow covered her mouth. She tried to keep going. “… to at least three …”
Then she stopped again, visibly tearing up.
“Put up the graphic of this,” she asked, pointing to the camera, her lips quivering. “Thank you. Do we have it? No.”
Maddow continued reading: “…three tender age shelters in South Texas. Lawyers and medical providers …” She stopped again. “I think I’m going to have to hand this off.”
“Sorry, that does it for us tonight. We’ll see you again tomorrow,” she said, handing the show over to host Lawrence O’Donnell.
What the Associated Press story said
After the show, Maddow tweeted an apology, along with the article she had been trying to read on the air.
She explained that she was “unable to read” the Associated Press story, and she apologized for “losing it there for a moment.” Here’s how the AP article began:
“Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to at least three ‘tender age’ shelters in South Texas.”
The story cited lawyers and medical providers who described “playrooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis.”
Kay Bellor, the vice president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, told the Associated Press it was hard for her to think about children being placed into facilities that hold Central American toddlers.
“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,” Bellor said. “Toddlers are being detained.”
The response to Maddow
Many viewers on Twitter said that Maddow expressed a sentiment currently felt by scores of Americans amid the Trump administration’s forced separation of migrant children from their parents at the border. The Department of Homeland Security has said 2,342 children have been separated from their parents since last month. Stories and images of children held in chain-link cages have sparked outrage nationwide.
Watching Rachel @maddow not even be able to speak, but literally break down crying talking about Trump’s latest development of “tender age” detainment of seemingly infants to toddlers has me a little shaken, sad, and disturbed.
— Jarrett Hill (@JarrettHill) June 20, 2018
Rachel Maddow crying on live national television is the first thing that has felt sane in two weeks
— Ben E (@RealToddHaynes) June 20, 2018
On Twitter, many told Maddow there was no need to apologize for expressing emotion over family separation on national television.
@maddow You responded as a feeling human being, and there's not enough of that right now. No apologies needed. https://t.co/1c2aIj1Jlv
— Leigh Taylor Ellis (@ThatEllisWoman) June 20, 2018
You don’t owe anybody an apology. Sometimes, bravery takes the form of tears.
— Rebecca Currans (@bekcat) June 20, 2018
We need empathy. We need so much of it. Thank you for sharing yours with the world.
— Chrissa Hardy 🧟♀️ (@chrissahardy) June 20, 2018
Maddow was one of the top trending topics on Twitter early Wednesday morning. Corey Lewandowski, President Trump’s former campaign manager, was also a trending topic.
On Tuesday night on Fox News, Lewandowski interrupted a fellow guest’s anecdote about a “10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was taken from her mother and put in a cage.”
“Womp womp,” Lewandowski said.
Many on Twitter contrasted Maddow’s reaction to that of Lewandowski’s.
The juxtaposition today of Corey Lewandowski's cruelly dismissive comments vs. Rachel Maddow's voice breaking, has been an emotional gut punch.
— Kim Possible™ (@kimlockhartga) June 20, 2018
As CNN’s Brian Stelter said, “these two moments convey the country’s divide.”
