Rachel Maddow Breaks Down on Air Over Immigrant Kids — Watch Video
The news cycle about President Trump’s immigration crackdown is hitting Rachel Maddow hard: The MSNBC anchor broke down on camera at the end of Tuesday’s show, getting so choked up that she couldn’t continue.
Watch the video here:
Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to "tender age" shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018
In the clip above, Maddow attempts to read an “incredible” new Associated Press report about the “tender age” shelters that immigrant babies and young children are being sent to after being forcibly separated from their parents in South Texas. Maddow chokes back tears while trying to read the report live on air, stopping several times to compose herself. Finally, she gives up, saying, “I think I’m gonna have to hand this off,” apologizing and handing off to fellow anchor Lawrence O’Donnell with a silent wave.
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After the broadcast, Maddow took to Twitter to apologize — “I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile” — and report the news she was unable to finish on air:
Ugh, I'm sorry.
If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I'm on TV.
What I was trying to do — when I suddenly couldn't say/do anything — was read this lede:
1/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
"Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents to at least three “tender age” shelters in South Texas…
2/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
"Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the "tender age" shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis…
3/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
"Decades after the nation’s child welfare system ended the use of orphanages over concerns about the lasting trauma to children, the administration is standing up new institutions to hold Central American toddlers that the government separated from their parents…
4/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, “Toddlers are being detained.”
5/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
All from this Associated Press story that broke while I was on the air tonight, but which I was unable to read on the air:https://t.co/2VBLTVxvQq
Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile.
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018
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