Rachel Maddow's job is to go on live TV and report the news, but after choking up over a new development in President Donald Trump [1]'s zero-tolerance immigration policy [2], she was unable to do so. On Tuesday night, the MSNBC host received a breaking news update about the thousands of children being separated from their parents [3] at the border and being moved from overcrowded shelters [4] to at least three new "tender age" shelters for toddlers and babies.
"This is incredible," Maddow said while reading the newly published Associated Press report [5]. "Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children . . ." She immediately choked up while reading the news about the shelters in South Texas, and asked if they could switch over to the next broadcaster, Lawrence O'Donnell.
Following the emotional moment on television, The Rachel Maddow Show host apologized for tearing up the air, and shared the report she wasn't able to verbalize earlier. "Ugh, I'm sorry. If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I'm on TV," she said on Twitter providing the AP report. "Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile."
According to the AP, "more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents at the US-Mexico border" since the new policy came into effect in the beginning of May. The shelters have been described [6] as "play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis." Families are being ripped apart, and it's heartbreaking. Read on to see Maddow's full report and the support she received after the segment, and find out how you can help children being separated from their parents at the border here [7].
