Rachel Maddow was overcome with emotion while discussing children getting separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border on "The Rachel Maddow Show" Tuesday evening.
The MSNBC anchor began discussing how infants and toddlers under the age of 3 have been taken from their parents at the the border of South Texas and Mexico and put into "tender age" shelters, but she got so choked up, she had to cut the segment early.
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View Story"This is incredible," Maddow said during her segment, reading a news update from the Associated Press. "Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children..."
"Oh, hold on," she said midway through her sentence. Maddow tried to continue, but she ended up handing the segment off to a correspondent in Brownsville, Texas.
Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to "tender age" shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR
@justinbaragona
After the emotional clip aired, Maddow took to Twitter to apologize for the breakdown and share an outline of what she meant to say during the broadcast.
"Ugh, I'm sorry," she wrote in a series of tweets. "If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I'm on TV. What I was trying to do -- when I suddenly couldn't say/do anything -- was read this lede."
Maddow then shared the AP article she attempted to read on air, adding, "Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile."
Ugh, I'm sorry.
@maddow
If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I'm on TV.
What I was trying to do -- when I suddenly couldn't say/do anything -- was read this lede:
1/6
"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...
@maddow
2/6
"Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the "tender age" shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis...
@maddow
3/6
"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...
@maddow
4/6
“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, “Toddlers are being detained.”
@maddow
5/6
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
@maddow
Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile.
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