News
Reporting That Trump Administration Is Housing Hundreds of Migrant Babies, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Breaks Down
As her show was coming to an end Tuesday night MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was handed breaking news, a report from the Associated Press on the immigrant crisis at the U.S. southern border. As she tried to read the text, Maddow, a seasoned and highly respected journalist, displayed unusual emotion, blurting out, “this is incredible.”
As she began to read the story live on-air, a story she had not previously read, she was unable to complete it, instead, breaking down and pausing because she was unable to speak.
At one point she asked her director to “put up the graphic,” hoping there was something to show viewers instead of her trying to not cry.
There was no graphic.
She tried to continue but was, understandably, unable.
“I think I’m going to have to hand this off,” she told her viewers, and did just that, as Lawrence O’Donnell’s show began.
Usually there is a bit of banter between the two anchors, but not this night.
This is the clip of Rachel Maddow in tears when she found out about the report of "tender age" shelters for babies and young children separated from their parents.pic.twitter.com/ELMj1ylrwT
— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) June 20, 2018
O’Donnell reported the story and Maddow posted this series of tweets, apologizing for breaking down – the first time she has done so on MSNBC.
"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
"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
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
Her viewers responded, many saying they respect her even more after tonight’s reporting.
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