Following the lead of MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell from Friday night, host Joy Reid on both Saturday and Sunday cited video dating back to the Barack Obama era as evidence that, under President Donald Trump, the U.S. Border Patrol destroys water supplies left in the desert for illegal immigrants, thus putting them at greater risk of dehydration.
On Saturday's AM Joy, during a discussion on now disputed reports that a seven-year-old girl was suffering from dehydration when she died recently in Border Patrol custody, host Reid brought up the issue of Border agents disposing of water. Here's Reid: "One of the issues was dehydration. We're going to show you some video ... but there is video of Border Patrol agents dumping water on the ground -- water that was meant to be left for migrants. This is from a Tucson-based aid group."
Speaking with Democratic Senators Mazie Hirono and Jeff Merkley, Reid posed: "What do you know about whether water is being provided to migrants when they are picked up near the border?"
As the chyron was shown on screen, the time stamp of the video showing that it was recorded in 2011 was initially obscured, although, when it was repeated a bit later, the date was very briefly visible.
On Sunday morning, Reid referred back to the video as if the events had only just recently occurred:
This week, we saw video of people who are still on the Mexico side of the border -- families including children -- having numbers written in magic marker on their arms to designate them as a number that are looking to have asylum in this country,
We saw Border Patrol dumping water that was made for desperate migrants being dumped out on the ground. This sort of extravagant cruelty is unusual for any administration, but, for this administration, they seem to think it's effective for their base.
As previously documented by NewsBusters, MSNBC host O'Donnell also used the outdated video on Friday night's The Last Word without informing viewers of when it happened.
But, when the video was released earlier this year, Border Patrol released a statement condemning the practice which even liberal CNN host W. Kamau Bell mentioned when he showed the video on his show in April of this year.
Returning to Sunday's AM Joy, Reid also seemed to experience amnesia as she claimed that the caravan had not been discussed since Election Day, and seemed unsure of how close it might be, even though substantial time was spent discussing the caravan's attempt to rush the border into the U.S. that resulted in tear gas being used to hold it back. Here's Reid:
What happened to the caravan? Remember the caravan was the most existential threat to American life and it was 1,000 miles away? Presumably now, weeks later, it's closer than 1,000 miles away, and it has disappeared from the screen of the Republican talking points.
