On Monday's Deadline: White House, MSNBC contributor and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson pushed for Donald Trump administration members to be jailed for following the law in implementing a zero tolerance policy against illegal immigrants, and garnered agreement from host Nicolle Wallace.
After MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff updated viewers on the number of children whose parents cannot be tracked down -- many of whom reportedly chose to leave their children in the country as they were deported -- host Wallace turned to Robinson and suggested that President Trump is afraid to concede defeat to Joe Biden out of fear of what the transition team would find in the Trump administration on such issues.
It didn't take long for Robinson to talk up prosecuting Trump administration members, declaring that they "should go to jail" for their actions. Robinson suggested:
One of the traditions that we have -- another tradition in our democracy, is that, you know, a new administration from the other party takes office, and we don't try to prosecute or really pursue the previous administration -- people in the previous administration -- for wrongs they committed. ... I think that's a tradition frankly we're going to have to take another look...
Without clarifying that legitimate asylum seekers were free to go to a port of entry and wait in line rather than trek through the desert to force their way into the country illegally, Robinson soon added:
It makes me so mad -- it makes me so angry that the torturing of these children, ripping them from their parents and in that way, deliberately as a show of cruelty to deter others from coming here to seek asylum is just -- people should go to jail for that -- people absolutely should go to jail for that because you can't do that and not know that it's wrong -- that it's criminal, it's immoral, it's just wrong.
After Robinson concluded by suggesting Biden would find serious problems in other departments as well, Wallace agreed with his analysis: "It's unbelievable. I associate myself with the comments of Eugene Robinson."
Robinson's been on a Trump-hating roll lately:
Over celebrations in Times Square, @Eugene_Robinson on MSNBC: “The only night that I...recall that really feels like this one was the night that Augusto Pinochet was defeated in...Chile and the country was going to return to democracy after 17 years of his autocratic rule.” pic.twitter.com/JVZTEtK1Nv
— Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) November 8, 2020
This episode of MSNBC's Deadline: White House was sponsored in part by Men's Wearhouse. Their contact information is linked.
Relevant transcript follows:
MSNBC
Deadline: White House
November 9, 2020
5:42 p.m. Eastern
NICOLLE WALLACE: The ProPublica tape -- and I think they were the first to have the audio tape of the babies wailing at those detention centers became the soundtrack of the horrors of the Trump presidency. And this is new information to me that there are 666 kids that remain separated -- and 230 of them were babies and toddlers at the time.
It seems to me that maybe the reason Trump doesn't want to transition is he doesn't want landing teams inside these agencies because once you open up the doors to sunlight, to normalcy, to people with integrity, it would appear that there is a whole rot around the Justice Department, around the Homeland Security Department of people that allowed for 230 infants and babies to be ripped from their parents. I mean, what is Joe Biden walking into? What sort of vastness of cruel policies implemented incompetently await him?
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: We don't fully know. But we have some idea. And so we're going to continue finding rot and decay and just -- I mean, this is -- you know, one of the traditions that we have -- another tradition in our democracy, is that, you know, a new administration from the other party takes office, and we don't try to prosecute or really pursue the previous administration -- people in the previous administration -- for wrongs they committed. Generally speaking, we don't.
I think that's a tradition frankly we're going to have to take another look at because every time -- and Jacob Soboroff and Julia, and Jacob in particular -- the reporting on this has just been so fabulous -- but it makes me so mad -- it makes me so angry that the torturing of these children, ripping them from their parents and in that way, deliberately as a show of cruelty to deter others from coming here to seek asylum is just -- people should go to jail for that -- people absolutely should go to jail for that because you can't do that and not know that it's wrong -- that it's criminal, it's immoral, it's just wrong. And, you know, 666 now, I think you know, I don't know that the number will climb. But I'm guessing that it will because they didn't care about these kids. They just didn't care about them. And it's just -- it's stunning. Now, that's, you know, in one department -- what else we'll find when Biden gets to sort of look, you know, under the rug in other departments, we have no idea.
WALLACE: It's unbelievable. I associate myself with the comments of Eugene Robinson.
