MSNBC anchor breaks down while reading report on ‘tender age’ shelters

Yesterday, an MSNBC television host, Rachel Maddow, broke down on air as she read an Associated Press report. The report was about the Trump administration’s three “tender age” shelters that were set-up to detain babies and other young children who had been forcibly separated from their parents at the United States-Mexico border.

Even as Maddow tried to continue, she couldn’t go beyond “Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children…” Despite her visible attempts, as can be seen in the video, to carry on with the show, Maddow broke down. She said, “I think I’m going to have to hand this off.”

Subsequently, the show was handed over to host Lawrence O’Donnell.

Later, Maddow took to Twitter to apologise for not being able to read the report while on air. In a chain of messages, Maddow tweeted out excerpts from the AP report that she had begun reading while on air. She apologised “for losing it there for a moment” and stated: “If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I’m on TV.”

Several Twitter users, nevertheless, have expressed similar sentiments and their support for Maddow.

With the White House announcing its zero tolerance policy in early May, more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents at the US-Mexico border, The Washington Post reported.

In an earlier report, AP revealed how hundreds of immigrant children were being held in a series of cages created by metal fencing inside an old warehouse in South Texas. The pictures in the report are heart-wrenching.

On June 20, following enormous political pressure United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order ending the separation of families at the southern border. The President, nevertheless, added that the “zero tolerance” policy will continue, and children will be held along with their parents in immigration detention while the parents await prosecution. The order does not detail how children now in the government’s care will be reunited with their parents, the Associated Press reported.