Watch Rachel Maddow break down learning of 'tender age' facilities for immigrant babies

Rachel Maddow was overcome with emotion on Tuesday’s episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, breaking down in tears as she ended her show by attempting to read a breaking news bulletin from the Associated Press regarding the Trump administration’s policy of forcibly separating babies from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This is incredible, Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children…” Maddow said before getting choked up live on air.

“To at least three…” she continued after a few moments, only to pause again.

“Put up the graphic of this, thank you,” Maddow asked her staff in attempts to move the camera off her. “Do we have it? No,” she stated before trying to continue to read the report. “…Three ‘tender age’ shelters. Lawyers and medical providers — [another pause as tears well up in her eyes] I think I’m going to have to hand this off. Sorry, that does it for us tonight. We’ll see you tomorrow,” she said before passing the broadcast on to Lawrence O’Donnell, who hosts the 10 p.m. ET hour on MSNBC.

O’Donnell finished reading the news live from Brownsville, Texas, where he was brodcasting from Tuesday.

Maddow tweeted about her emotional breakdown later in the evening: “Ugh, I’m sorry,” she wrote. “If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I’m on TV… Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile.”