On Monday, Morning Joe finally discovered something that the rest of America has known for over a year: there is a humanitarian crisis at America’s southern border. In doing so, however, they ignored the real issues plaguing America’s Customs and Border Patrol and went straight to throwing particularly disgusting political dirt at the Trump Administration.
In a segment that included co-hosts Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Associated Press White House Correspondent Jonathan Lemire, the panelists reacted to a New Yorker piece from over the weekend that detailed the dire conditions in overwhelmed migrant detention centers on the border.
Instead of actually diving into the nuances of the issue at hand, Scarborough went right to questioning Vice President Mike Pence’s Christian faith over Border Patrol not being given enough resources from Congress to adequately care for the surge of illegal migrants.
After playing a clip of Pence calling on Congress to provide more funding, the MSNBC hosts launched this vile attack (click “expand”):
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Jonathan Lemire, that's just a lie.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI [REFERRING TO PENCE]: You're pathetic.
SCARBOROUGH: Mike Pence is lying about children living in torturous positions right there. Mike Pence, who claims to be a Christian—
BRZEZINSKI: Chortling –
SCARBOROUGH: — a devout Christian and uses is — and I'm sure he is; I’m not questioning his faith but he uses it as a political badge of honor. Mike should read the gospels again and see what Jesus says about the treatment of little children. He can start at Luke 17:2. Something about mill stones being hung around people's neck. You have got to explain to us: what does the administration think they are gaining by allowing children to walk around with lice and walk around without diapers and 8-year-olds having to take care of 2 or 3-year-olds? What does the administration think they gain from that?
And then, Scarborough and Lemire claimed that Trump’s zero tolerance policy on the border was somehow responsible for an issue caused by a lack of resources provided to CBP from Congress, with Scarborough snarling at how the administration is “letting these children live like dogs”:
SCARBOROUGH: So what does the administration think they gain by letting these children live like dogs?
LEMIRE: I mean, they of course -- as you heard the Vice President say, they'll dispute that categorization, but it's clear that's what's happening. And it goes back to the President and his stance about zero tolerance at the border. He is saying that technically families are not separated anymore. But what they're doing is they're in these facilities, longer than by regulations, they are only supposed to be there two or three days before they move on to HHS custody. That is not happening. People, including children, are forced to live in squalor much longer than that. It is part of, they say, a negotiating tactic, it’s pressure to get more money from the Democrats. They’re trying to make a congressional deal but what it also is, it’s the President looking tough. And a President who still feels that this issue -- immigration, the border, but that's –
The reason the conditions at the border for detained illegal immigrants awaiting an asylum hearing are so dire is because CBP has been overwhelmed by a surge of illegal immigration from failing Central American countries. In March, more than 103,000 undocumented immigrants crossed over the southern border, the highest levels in 12 years. Migrant detention centers, built during the Obama Administration, were not designed to care for children over long periods of time, leading to the lack of basic supplies like blankets, diapers, and medicine.
The situation prompted the Trump administration to request $4.5 billion in emergency border funding from Congress at the beginning of May that would have provided basic supplies to care for families who were detained crossing illegally. Democrats refused for vote for it.
In a statement at the time, House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita M. Lowey (D-NY), said “much of the new White House request would double down on cruel and ill-conceived policies, including bailing out Immigration and Customs Enforcement for overspending on detention beds and expanding family detention.”
If Morning Joe actually cared about children “being treated like dogs” on the southern border, they would fairly report on White House efforts to secure the border, provide additional funding to the detention centers, and make U.S. asylum laws more efficient instead of trying to slander members of the administration.
The full transcript is below. Click “expand” to read more.
MSNBC's Morning Joe
06/24/2019
6:07 a.m. Eastern
JAKE TAPPER: Aren't toothbrushes and blankets and medicine, basic conditions for kids aren't they a part of how the United States of America, the Trump Administration, treats children?
PENCE: Well, of course they are, Jake --
TAPPER: Well, the lawyer was arguing the opposite --
PENCE: I can't speak to what that lawyer was saying. It's one of the reasons that we asked for more bed space.
TAPPER: We have money to give soap and toothbrushes to the kids in this facility in El Paso county right now we do --
PENCE: Of course we do.
TAPPER: So, why aren't we?
PENCE: My point is its part of the appropriation process. Congress needs to provide additional support to deal with the crisis at the southern border.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: No, actually, no Mr. Vice President --
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Jonathan Lemire, that's just a lie.
BRZEZINSKI: You're pathetic.
SCARBOROUGH: Mike Pence is lying about children living in torturous positions right there. Mike Pence who claims to be a Christian —
BRZEZINSKI: Chortling —
SCARBOROUGH: — a devout Christian and uses is — and I'm sure he is; I’m not questioning his faith but he uses it as a political badge of honor. Mike should read the gospels again and see what Jesus says about the treatment of little children. He can start at Luke 17:2. Something about mill stones being hung around people's neck. You have got to explain to us: what does the administration think they are gaining by allowing children to walk around with lice and walk around without diapers and 8-year-olds having to take care of 2 or 3-year-olds? What does the administration think they gain from that?
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Yeah, I mean this is hard to watch, it’s hard to listen to. It's the New Yorker the New York Times, my colleagues at the Associated Press the last week or so have done some extraordinary reporting about the conditions at those facilities. As you said it, 7 and 8-year-olds simply being forced to take care of 5-month-olds who they don't even know, just because no one else was going to do that. Soiled diapers, shirts covered with mucous.
SCARBOROUGH: So what does the administration think they gain by letting these children live like dogs?
LEMIRE: I mean, they of course — as you heard the Vice President say, they'll dispute that categorization, but it's clear that's what's happening. And it goes back to the President and his stance about zero tolerance at the border. He is saying that technically families are not separated anymore. But what they're doing is they're in these facilities, longer than by regulations, they are only supposed to be there two or three days before they move on to HHS custody. That is not happening. People, including children, are forced to live in squalor much longer than that. It is part of, they say, a negotiating tactic, it’s pressure to get more money from the Democrats. They’re trying to make a congressional deal but what it also is, it’s the President looking tough. And a President who still feels that this issue -- immigration, the border, but that's –
SCARBOROUGH: Does the president think that letting 2-year-old children walk around with lice and without diapers does he think that helps him politically?
LEMIRE: The President thought that child separations at the border a year ago helped him politically, so it stands to reason there’s at least some degree that could here now --
SCARBOROUGH: Do Republican senators, and I'm dead serious, I know a lot of them. A lot of them also men and women of faith. Do they think that this is permissible with the Christian faith they claim and also being members of the United States Senate, do they think this is permissible?
LEMIRE: I guess I would answer it this way. None of them have spoken up about it yet.
