On Friday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, fill-in host Katy Tur led a discussion of President Donald Trump's handling of the illegal immigrant caravan as she and other panel members suggested the President deliberately wishes to stoke violence by stationing military troops on the border with Mexico.
Tur also went into a self-admitted "rant" in which she fretted that Trump is exaggerating border security problems for political gain.
As correspondent Julia Ainsley gave an update on the military preparations near the border, she downplayed reports by DHS that some criminals are in the caravan as she related:
Any time you have a group of 4,000 people, you could have some who are known to cause problems. We know when they crossed into Mexico, there were some who clashed with police. But, by and large, these are all people who are coming to peacefully claim asylum and turn themselves in.
After noting that there is no evidence of funding from terrorist groups, she hinted that the President is trying to cause violence as she commented:
It's almost that he wants to see some kind of unrest at the border, and he's putting pressure on these people by making them wait to cross in. They're not putting more asylum officers at the border, they are threatening to close down certain lanes to make that a more narrow bottle neck. It's almost that he's putting pressure on them that would cause that kind of outrage.
Tur then jumped in to comment: "It's almost like he wants to see a fight at the border."
Former FBI agent and frequent MSNBC guest Clint Watts agreed: "Yes, he wants a conflict to justify that he's doing something about it. If you build it, they will come. This is the same sort of theory here, which is, create a border crisis, then we have a border crisis."
