Appearing on NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers Monday night, aired early Tuesday morning, left-wing actor George Takei launched into a tirade labeling the detention of illegal immigrants along the U.S. southern border to be a “grotesque new low,” “evil,” and an “American disgrace.” The rant came just one month after he compared immigration detention centers to “concentration camps” in an interview with GQ magazine.
Predictably, liberal host Seth Meyers teed up his guest by claiming a “parallel” between the Trump administration’s treatment of illegal immigrants and the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. He asked Takei, who lived in an internment camp as a child: “How hard is it for you to see what’s happening to families at the border right now, thinking that maybe what had happened to you was part of American history as opposed to American present?”
The Star Trek actor became unhinged:
It is a parallel, but it’s a new low because we as children were always together with our parents....What we have on the southern borders now is a grotesque new low. Children being torn away from their parents. Infants torn away, put in filthy, disgusting cages with human waste in it. I mean, children. And to really underscore the evil in this, some of them are scattered to the far reaches of the United States from the southern border....I mean, intentional cruelty, evil....It is an American tragedy and an American disgrace.
Meyers of course agreed with the nasty rhetoric as he thanked Takei for coming on the program.
Earlier on the show, Meyers brought on another virulently anti-Trump guest, comedian Kathy Griffin, who thanked the Late Night host for being one of the few people who would still interview her.
Here is a transcript of the exchange with Takei aired on August 13:
1:15 AM ET
(...)
SETH MEYERS: And, you know, it’s hard not to draw a parallel to what’s happening now. How hard is it for you to see what’s happening to families at the border right now, thinking that maybe what had happened to you was part of American history as opposed to American present?
GEORGE TAKEI: It is a parallel, but it’s a new low because we as children were always together with our parents. We were never separated and our parents protected us from the reality that was surrounding us. What we have on the southern borders now is a grotesque new low. Children being torn away from their parents. Infants torn away, put in filthy, disgusting cages with human waste in it. I mean, children. And to really underscore the evil in this, some of them are scattered to the far reaches of the United States from the southern border. Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey, I mean, intentional cruelty, evil. And when the courts order them to bring the children and the parents together, they are so incompetent that they can’t find the right child or the parents to put them together. It is an American tragedy and an American disgrace.
(...)
