After two migrant children died in U.S. custody, Fox host Trish Regan used the tragedy not to question their treatment but to suggest their deaths were the Democrats’ fault for not funding a border wall (that Donald Trump promised Mexico would pay for).
Wednesday, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) debated Regan about the wall and the government shutdown. Sadly, he never called out her propagandistic tactics, thus enabling them to pass as legitimate.
However, Krishnamoorthi seemed to be there in the hope of floating a solution to the government shutdown over the wall. After correctly noting that the majority of Americans don’t want a wall and that even more don’t view it as a priority, he added, “I think the president and Democrats should come together on some enhanced border security, and then fund the government. That’s what the American people want right now.”
Krishnamoorthi also said that border-state lawmakers, including Republican Rep. Will Hurd, say a wall is unwise, ineffective and wasteful. “Remember, it’s not the Mexicans who are paying for it,” Krishnamoorthi added, getting in a dig.
Oops! Regan did not want to remind her viewers that Trump promised Mexico would pay for the wall. “All right, Congressman,’ she interrupted. “So you just had me on the path of, like, something could get done here, right? That you believe in enhanced border security. … Now you’re saying you don’t think that the wall works. So which is it?”
Krishnamoorthi stuck to his guns. “I think that enhanced border security can come in the form of more manpower, the greater use of technology, repairing existing structures where they might be in disrepair. But a 20-foot, 2000 mile wall is not going to work.”
“It sounds like the shutdown’s gonna keep going, then, because you’re gettin’ back to the issue that so many Democrats are really stuck on,” Regan groused. Then she suggested that the “symbolism” of a wall could have saved the lives of the two migrant children who recently died while in U.S custody.
REGAN: When you create a scenario that makes it easier for people with children to come here and seek asylum, well, what do you know, you get more and more kids coming here.
And so you are putting them in harm’s way. You’re—you are making a more dangerous situation for these families. If you have a wall, does that symbolically send a message that might actually work in some ways as a deterrent, so, hopefully, those kids are not put in that position to begin with, sir?
This was an outrageous exploitation of tragedy but Krishnamoorthi let it go by and went back to arguing that the wall is ineffective.
But clearly, Regan’s real concern was in promoting Trump’s demand for a wall. She never put forth a single fact or statistic indicating a wall would be effective or wanted by Americans. So she further blamed Democrats for opposing it. “Isn’t it up to you guys to find some kind of negotiation strategy so it all does get done?” she “asked,” conveniently forgetting that it was Trump who sabotaged the bipartisan spending bill that would have kept the government open.
Watch Regan use the deaths of children to promote Trump’s unwanted wall and divisive politics above, from the December 26, 2018 Your World.
Crossposted at News Hounds.
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