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tv   MSNBC Live With Katy Tur  MSNBC  May 29, 2018 11:00am-12:00pm PDT

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but to have a constant normalization where people are just blatantly taking out their feelings of hatred, racism and islamophobia and gender inequality and homophobia is totally unacceptable. we can debate in the town square, but we cannot stand there and subsidize you be an apostle of hate in our commercial commodities that we support with our consumer dollars. >> katie tur is standing by to pick up our breaking news, again, abc canceling roseanne, after those comments she made about obama senior adviser
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valerie jarrett. >> stay where you are, rev, i want to ask you a question. it's 11:00 a.m. out west and 2:00 p.m. in new york, abc has cancelled roseanne after she made a tweet that she later deleted. barr compared jarrett to an ape and twittered she apologized to valerie jarrett and to all americans. her apology did not stop the fallout. scores on twitter demanding to cancel barr's show. and then wanda sykes said she would not be returning for the show's second season. all of that leading to abc's decision to ultimately shut down the show. it is just the latest in a string of public incidents that have highlight the state of race
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relations in america. in a recent poll, 64% of americans said that race continues to be a problem in this country. we have jonathan capehart, "washington post" opinion writer. reverend, are you still there? >> i am. >> i want to ask you a question, you were talking about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable to say anythilonger w some things have changed in the past few years, with many more of the things that were never said outloud are now in the public sphere and there are some things there are having very serious consequences, roseanne's show getting cancelled a few
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hours after saying this, is one example. at some point do you think this extends to him or is he insulated because of who voted for trump? >> i think that it will come back to him because i think that he has been the one that has changed the culture in terms of what is permitted. any time you have the oval office, where he has presented dog whistles that clearly are race driven, let's not forget katie that he started his political career with birth birtherism, saying the president of the united states barack obama is not one of us, and really african. and not an american. so i think that he elevated it there. what i think you're seeing now is people finally standing up saying that will not be tolerate and i think it will spill over into how people will vote because we are being embarrassed
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as a nation all over the world because we seek and tolerate this kind of intolerable behavior. and mr. trump began his career and has remained a symbol of that. >> what do you think, rev, while i have you before i let you go, of the state of race relations in this country and how does this highlight it? >> i think we have made some progress, but i think we still have two nations in one, one for people of color, one for whites, a different state for women, a different state for people of other religions and certainly the lgbq community. and we have moved forward, we were beginning to edge an
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incremental step forward, i think the trump presidency has seen a backlash, i think what we must do is deal with it head on. that's what the town hall tonight is all about. it's starting to deal with this head on and trying to deal with it in all parts of society because you cannot ever medicate and restore something until you first expose it and deal with it. it may make you uncomfortable, but it gets rid of the illness and we are becoming sick when we normalize race relations in this country, all over again. >> reverend al sharpton, thank you for sticking by. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> john, what's your reaction to this news? >> i like a lot of people was actually taken by surprise, not
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only that abc went out and made a comment, but took the extra step of canceling the show. i think it is a wise move to jump off what rev was just talking about, you know, the president has unleashed a lot of demons in this country and a lot of people feel that it is -- a lot of things that they felt were not okay to say it, because the p.c. police was keeping them from saying things that because the president, now the president of the united states is saying them, that it's okay to say these things, that there will be no repercussions and because of these tweets and because people instantly jumped on roseanne's tweets, and accountability not only from abc demanded action, and they took action. today of all days when the nation rolled into this morning talking about starbucks and what
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it was going to be doing and all these starbucks stores being closed to do training on race. and why is starbucks the only coany that's gotten into a racial situation, the only company that's trying to do something about it and then comes in abc and roseanne having a problem, and the fact that abc moved and moved quickly, and let's not underestimate an action, to cancel a show like roseannes sends a message to actors, to everyone, that people just can't go out there and say racist, bigoted, misogynistic things and not be held
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accountable for it. >> are you saying you can't say these things even if you have big ratings? and i'm being sarcastic here. >> and the answer to your sarcastic question, is no. >> roseanne was not an unkno unquantiunknown quantity, she's been known for getting people riled up for years now, this is nothing new, maybe this particular tweet is newish, but we all kind of know who roseanne is and the way she speaks and who she goes after and the way in which she does that. there were photos of her in a hitler mustache dressed up in nazi like garb making ginger bread cookies. she came back, she made great
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ratings and this is the line? jon? >> are you talking to me, katie? >> yes. >> i thought you were going to another guest. racism and issues of race have plagued this country since it's founding. and we have gone through these spasms of we must have a national conversation on race or now things have changed or this moment things are going to be different, and i think what we're seeing now, especially in the age of trump, that there is no silver bullet to this conversation to changing this problem that we're going to see many more situations pop-up, whether it's another waffle house situation, or something else happening at a starbucks or something happening on another television show, or someone who feels that because the president of the united states can tell it like it is, well, they can too without any repercussions, that it is incumbent upon those of us, americans of conscience and
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of malonction to stand up to the racism and bigotry wherever it comes from. whether it's from the president of the united states, who's been doing it since june 15, 2015, coming down that's ck us can l e latlate -- escalator saying that mexicans are rapists. it's now incumbent upon all of us to be part of the solution and not just look to us with big titles, big jobs and big responsibilities to do something if we're going to have any kind of hope of solving this problem. >> the town hall tonight, jonathan, you're expected to be there, and valerie jarrett is expected to be there. any indication whether she's
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going to have some sort of statement or some sort of public reaction? >> you can be mean and funny, but you can't even racist, mean and unfunny. i am having this town hall to talk about the forms of racism they experience. we look at the starbucks situation, we look at other situations across the country, where police are called because people fear black skin and black bodies, so when you hear statements like roseanne made, they're not only weaponized against the place, but they also hoist a burden on people who are dealing with these problems in the first place. every single day in america, black folks in particular bear the burden of america's original
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sin which is racism and so again, the timing with this roseanne, the show being cancelled, valerie jarrett will be sitting on our stage tonight at 9:00, the timing couldn't be more remarkable. i'm sure she'll have something to say about it, but it feeds into tonight's town hall, they we're going to address this issue head on, because so many times you don't hear these words in polite conversation, but they're being said. >> those who are supporting donald trump and we would address the issue of racism or i would bring up the issue of race, often their argument would be, president obama is president, you can't say that things aren't equal now, the man rose to the highest place you can rise in our country, clearly racism is not an issue and it's being exaggerated by those on the left.
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>> as we know, this kernel of this post racial society was silly at best even then. how white folks have evolved to accept this biracial man as president. but if you're talking about the lives black people and brown people across this country, live every single day, the microaggressions that are being followed in the store, having the police called on you for sleeping in your dorm. essentially having the police called on them for moving into their apartment. there was a group of black folks stealing some luggage. and it's absurd and would be laughable if this wasn't what people of color experience every single day. >> we have a statement from bob
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iger, quoting, from channing dunger, president of abc entertainment, roseanne's twitter statement is abhor rent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values and we have decided to cancel her show, there was only one thing to do here and that was the right thing. and also on our show is mark thompson from "make it plain." make it plain for us, mark. >> first of all i'm glad to be here with my brothers and you my sister, of course. we just had the whole world celebrate for the first time a fairy tale, a black princess in britain, we all were overjoyed. >> she waved at you all too. you all got the first official wave from princess meghan, princess markle. this, for roseanne to degrade
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black women before, this is not the gifirst time she's done thi she's made comments about susan rice in the past. but i want to point out, president trump has enabled this. and lee atwater defeigned that famously in a quote about what you can't say out loud. but donald trump has taken us back 50 years with his rhetoric and the rhetoric of his supporters. abc, it is right that it was the only thing abc could do. but in the meantime, we must decry this as every turn. how many little black girls are looking at this today, after having just seen that beautiful wedding, now only to be degraded once again, and for each and
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every one of us who's black, katie, especially for our children, it's something that mutts a ceiling in front of us, can i aspire as a little black girl to be katie tur or valerie jarrett or anything like that, after what roseanne said. president trump needs to come out and say this is wrong and fox news needs -- i'll just call them right now. they need to temper their rhetoric. >> it will be interesting to see if the president will address this. he championed roseanne for her ratings and what that meant for him when her show premiered a few months ago. we're going to continue this conversation, do not go anywhere. ompany
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back on that breaking news, abc has cancelled roseanne barr's show after a derogatory tweet targets obama administration senior advisor valerie jarrett. back with me is nbc's germaine lee and jonathan capehart of the "washington post." you asked a question, how is the white house going to respond, how is fox news going to
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respond? we have gotten no reaction really from the white house. but we got this from the president praising roseanne after the show's newest premier a few months ago. listen to back then. >> even roseanne, i called her yesterday, look at her ratings. >> he loves her ratings specifically because of the way it mirrors him, what it looks like for him. the talk was trump supporters were the ones that were watching roseanne, the people that were forgotten in this country, the people who felt like they weren't being heard in the liberal media and liberal entertainment, and look at roseanne, maybe we should look at our audiences and expand our horizons, roseanne has always been a controversial character. we have this from our white house unit.
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we just saw sarah sanders in the hallway and she had no comment about roseanne being cancelled. we asked when she would have a comment she said it was not clear. they'll also try to shout questions on the south lawn, so we're going to look out for that. in the meantime, harris faulkner of fox news has reacted. i don't understand it to be anything other than free speech, and it is extremely offensive, but it was just that, in one of her tweets, there were three rapid fire today, where she said it was a joke, a miscalculated joke. mark? >> if anyone said anything like that about harris faulkner, wouldn't she have the right to be outraged? wouldn't the network have the right to be outraged? we do have free speech, but that doesn't give anybody the right
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to be racist. and any of these companies has the right and the duty to call out roseanne as did abc. it and that's a form of enabling. people will call my show tomorrow and say we agree with harris faulkner, and i had a guy the other day and said that the con fed rfederate flag was free speech, but it's also racist. that is just completely unacceptable and outrageous. and frankly anyone who supports that statement on any one of these networks should be gotten rid of today. >> jonathan, what do you make of the argument for free speech. often what i would hear when i was talking to trump supporters is that he says what they're
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thinking, he's not afraid to say, he doesn't back down. what happened to free speech in this country, they would ask, why can't you say these things? is there a difference between exercising your free speech with a joke that she later apologized and getting fired for it? i mean where is the line? tell me. >> well, katie, this question of free speech, especially in cases like this, drive me bananas. because people want free speech, only, it seems when they can denigrate, belittle someone who isn't like them. and the moment someone exercises their free speech that offends them, oh, my god, something must be done about them. when you read the comment from the fox news anchor claiming, oh, this is free speech, you
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know who i thought of? colin kaepernick. >> thank you. >> colin kaepernick first was sitting on the bench to protest police brutality, a very real issue the country should have been talking about then and should still be talking about today. a former green beret and at the time a player at the nfl, nate boyer with the seattle seahawks, wrote an open letter to the seattle seahawks and saying you sitting on the bench offends me being a veteran. and colin kaepernick and nate boy boyer sat down and talked about it and boyer said here's what you can do, is kneel, this is something that people do to honor the fallen. and then the president of the
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united states who denigrate s hm in racial terms, uses it to gin up his rally cry, and rally up his base to bully -- i don't know if it's bullied nfl owners, who have crumbled under the pressure to number one keep colin kaepernick from ever working again, and to institute this insane anthem rule, where's colin kaepernick's rights. >> i have never heard the president come out and say he was offended by a statement like this. i have heard this administration come out and say they are offended when they believe somebody on their side has been denigrated. i remember the buproar over the white house correspondents dinner. and maybe they were talking
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about sarah sanders look, and they were not talking about sarah sanders looks and they took that opportunity to push back and i can't remember a time when the president has said he personally was offended by a racist comment towards someone else. >> and katie, you know what? you never will. >> no. >> quite frankly, you never will. >> you know what you're going to hear jonathan? you're going to hear him, just like in charlottesville, both sides, both sides do it. it's a false equivalency. >> this is what he used during the campaign and what he could like he did in 2016 as a rallying cry, they're attacking me and you, they want to stop you from believing what you believe, they want to stop you from being great. it plays into one of his strengths. >> fine.
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fine. that's how he got elected by opening up a chest of evil talk in this country. what i think, in order to counter that, fine, folks, the forgotten, president trump speaks for you. you know what? there are about, i would say 65% of the country who's offended by the president and who is offended bring why what he's do the presidency and what he's done to the couny's reputation around the wor and i think it would bencumbent upon people who are offended by the president to remind folks that hess n he is not who we are as a country. so decembspite the folks who th that the president speaks for them and stands up for them, all those folks who are counter to
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the president and wants someone in office, either at the state house, in congress or the white house in 2020, they want someone who speaks for them and represents them, then its incumbent upon them to do something about it. i have said since charlottesville, katie, when he said what he said about there are very fine people and that, the situation on both sides, at that moment, he seeded the moral authority of the presidency when he did that. he has no moral core, so to expect anything more from him would be to expect too much. that's why i think this rally that's going to happen in tennessee will be very interesting to watch, will he dive into this feted pool that he created even further to gin up his base and to sew more discord and more discontent. what are we, those of us with moral convictions and moral core, what will we do to stand
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up do and counter what's coming from the oval office? >> i'm not saying that the outrage is wrong, i'm just wondering if this outrage that you hear right here extends to anywhere else in the country, besides new york, washington, los angeles, chicago? >> katie, i would ark that the it dthe -- i would argue that it does, but it's just us folks in urban places have more chance to talk about it. but we all deserve more than what's coming out of the administration and the people who sport him. >> a media reporter at npr joins us by phone. david, this was a really swift move by abc, they cancelled this slow, this popular show, that was garnering them a lot of ratings and making them a lot of money. within a few hours of that tweet. >> yeah, and they also, you know, had a show, which in some ways helped insulate them from
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some of the charges of media elitism that is the idea that they were not broadcasting to an audience that would be supportive of the president or of his policies or the values or the like or at least have some sympathy for them and made sure they dispensed with it. i'm not sure that there was anything roseanne could have done. let me just say, what she had to say in the tweet about valerie jarre jarrett, but also talking about chelsea clinton and george soros, and back to other things she's said over the years and said it with such force and pungence that they had to stand up. >> here's a more specific question, is she going to get paid the rest of her contract? would there be a morality clause
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in her contract or some sort of firing for cause if you have become a target of negative publicity or if you yourself put yourself in a position to receive negative publicity? we have those sorts of things in news contracts. does she have those sorts of things in hers? >> i would be astonishedive bob iger and disney company would line up millions of dollars to -- knowing her ability to be so deeply offensive and, you know, without having entertained promises from her that she would temper what she had to say. i mean this was -- one of the interesting things to me as a media critic, is seeing over the hours this idea that this was racially charged or racially edgy or racially tinged, this statement is really hard to look
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at as being anything other than racist, there's no other point in terms of what she had to say about valerie jarrett. disney would have to have some sort of clause to be able to get out of this. this is not what they wanted, they wanted a successful vehicle that would allow them to appeal to a different swathe of the nation, to perhaps encourage different types of conversations that were being had across purposes and across families and this is the way to accomplish that. >> the woman who plays the daughter, darlene on the show. she says as i called my manager to quit working on roseanne, i found out the show got canning selled. i feel so empowered by wanda sykes, channing dunger and those at abc who stood up against this
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racism. what do you think for shows that would actually go out and target the trump base, the trump voters, the voters that have forgoted in this country, as roseann was said to have done? >> i think you have seen that in the desire to re-create vehicles for tim allen, some of them were not as offensive a figure who has had some broader appeal over the years, i think that networks are going to have to figure out how to do this, and the climate we're in, the presidency we're experiencing now has made this a very difficult things, because as you guys have pointed out, the president has not been good at articulating in a way that we have come to expect, rightly or wrongly from our national leaders, the kinds of concerns on behalf of all americans, the charlottesville example, i think is most searing, the inability to avoid the anguish of so many
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americans, not simply black americans, but all americans who see racist and offensive behavior. and let's be clear, roseanne does have first amendment rights, she can say what she wants, so too does the disney company have the right to decide they're not going to be associated with that. i think they're really sorry that this is the out come, i think they hoped for something more successful and triumphant. >> you're going to be at the town hall tonight, tell us what we can expect? >> firster wanted to reference a point i heard earlier is that roseanne had become a martyr. some white folks were barbecuing and -- when police finally get to this woman, she breaks down in tears. when i speak to people across the country about everyday acts of racism, many say the onus is
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always on them to behave correct by because the perpetrator often becomes the victim. because i went across the country not to look at the big high profile cases of police brutality. but sthink about the racism tha people experience every day. so at tonight's town hall, we're going to have people here in the wake of the starbucks where two black men were arrested. so we're looking to address this issue of racism head on, it's not about the big high profile cases, but the way regular black folks experience every day. and it couldn't be more fortunate or unfortunate that valerie jarrett is going to be on the stage tonight. >> guys, thank you for taking the story of roseanne and
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elevating it to a much bigger story as race in america. and a reminder to catch tonight's town hall, everyday racism in america, you can also learn at and president trump is going up against the -- we're going to attempt to take the politics out of this debate and pose a question. this is important stuff. are we as americans okay with how we treat immigrants. before i had the shooting, burning, pins-and-needles of diabetic nerve pain, these feet... grew into a free-wheeling a kid... loved every step of fatherhood...
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outlining it in california earlier this plo. . >> if you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child may be separated from you as required by law. >> but indulge us here, we want to step back from the politics of it. ignore the blame, subtract the words trump and republican and democrat from this discussion completely, at the hea of this is an immigration system that's been broken and inhumane for years, through several administrations, republican and democrat. here's who's generally coming across our border. illegal immigration from mexico has been on the decline for a decade, but immigration from other countries have been increasing, they are fleeing poverty, violent crimes, street gangs and murder rates of 80 per 100,000. in plain language, that means
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out of every 100,000 people in el salvador, 80 people are killed. that is a staggering number. to escape that, to look for a safer life for their family, they have looked north. what they may not have known is that since march, crossing the u.s. border means they could be separated from their kids. there was a 10-year-old from elsel salvador who yelled why do i have to leave as his parents are taken away, and the children are put in detention centers. look at these pictures, those are people in there, these come from a 2015 aclu lawsuit, these are the detention centers. they are rooms packed so tightly, there's nowhere to lay down. rooms so cold, immigrants, people are given those foil space blankets, you know the ones i'm talking about to keep them warm. places where immigrants are
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denied adequate food, water, medicine and medical care, not to mention the little things like soap and toilet paper. this treatment is nothing new. what is new now is a trump administration policy separating parents from their kids. so politics aside, our big question is, are we as americans okay with how we treat immigrants? let's bring in our reporters and analysts, heidi is a national political correspondent for nbc news and allan is an immigration reporter for usa today. heidi, i want to make this point that this has been going on for years and the conditions in those detention centers. is there that there hasn't been enough coverage around these topics or is there generally not an appetite by our elected leaders to change these facilities, to change these circumstances? >> i think maybe both, katie, there are probably a lot of
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americans that are not aware of those conditions you just outlined, but more importantly it is a lack of courage on behalf of our elected leaders that, yes, predates trump. i take you back to 2013, when we had an immigration standoff. we thought we were coming close to having a comprehensive bill and it blew up. and there's been a -- anything that they do on immigration is going to hurt them politically. i take you back to the congressman from iowa in 2013 calling people coming across the border, drug dealers hauling 75 pounds of marijuana with calves the sign of wacantaloupes. and trump announcing his campaign, called people coming across the border drug dealers and raprapists. i think it's a combination, it's
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also a sign of the time that misinformation can be so easily spread about the nature of immigration, that people believe that people are still coming from mexico, for instance, that they are driving down their wages and taking their jobs when in fact the numbers tell us otherwise, that they are taking a lot of the jobs that americans do not want to take. >> allen, you've covered this, what is the reality at our borders? >> just to follow up on that, it's just not in washington that we're hearing that kind of sentiment, the pugh research center just last week came out with a really fascinating poll. when trump came into office, 66% of americans believed that the u.s. has a responsibility to accept refugees an asylum seeker into the country, last month it's down to 51%, i have never seen a poll question drop like that, the numbers go down even lower for republicans and even
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lower for evangelicals so i think that reflects that we're seeing. the difficult thing, though, is that a lot of americans are saying this is exactly why president trump was elected for, immigration was one of his signature issues. and they're trying to enact more of these laws that deport them more quickly, there's a lot of outcry over it and there's a lot of attention given to the did tension conditi -- detention conditions. >> jeff sessions called it a law, it's not a law, it's a policy that his administration enacted, you just heard jeff sessions announce that policy and president trump ran on that policy. we have that on tape, why is he not owning something that according to the polling and
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according to what alan just said helped him get elected? >> because he can. he's done the same thing -- saying that it's in this charged environment that he has a whole conservative media echo environment that will basically take it's queues from him and convince at least 30% of the electorate that he is right. in this case, when you see these children at the border, when you hear the stories of 1-year-olds showing up in court by themselves because they've been ripped away from their mommies and now you see these evangelical groups, religious groups, potentially speaking out on this. the president is going to try and turn the tables and put this on the democrats and i'm afraid to say, for 30% of the public, because he has an infrastructure
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to convince them that that's accurate when it's not, he'll continue to do so. >> alan, so what is the recourse? >> the only recourse is for congress actually to do something. that's one of the only things that people can agree on in the immigration world is that our laws are incredibly outdated. the administration is right, there's a lot of things that they cannot control. yes, he absolutely changed the policy and by issuing this zero tolerance policy, meaning that everybody who crosses over will be criminally prosecuted, that then gets into this idea -- into all these laws that require them then to separate the families, but right now we have almost 218 members of the house who have signed on to a discharge position, to try to get four different immigration bills on the floor, the house speaker paul ryan is trying to stop that. again, another situation where they're trying to avoid any possibility of having to debate
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immigration or debate these laws. i w in 2013, the house refused to accept it. so until congress and washington gets together and pafsz something, and they're they hav something to update these laws and get us into a situation where we don't have all this mess we are facing right now. >> thank you both very much. let's go to the deputy director of the aclu national immigrants rights project, and jessica vaughn, director of policy studies at the center for immigration studies. lee, i want to start with you. the administration says that separating families, the point of it for them is to deter people from crossing the border. >> right. >> is it deterring people from crossing the border? >> no. we don't believe it will ultimately deter people, because people have no choice. they are fleeing potential death to themselves and to their kids. what choice do they have? it is horrible, but it's just
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one of those rock and a hard place situations. it's not going to deter and it's inhumane, and picking up on a point heidi made, i think she's right to say he blames the democrats because he's been getting away with it. but i think the interesting point about the family separation issue is i don't think the administration expected the kind of blowback they're getting from both democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals. i think once people understood their kids are 1 or 2, it's really blown back so rather than standing up and saying we are going to do it and this is what we're going to do, he's pulling back a little, blaming the democrats. i think you asked the right question, sort of what does it take for the american public to get going. i think it's real knowledge of what's going on. >> there's a little out of sight -- >> out of sight, out of mind. >> ye, yeah. >> i'm sorry. >> don't worry. i.c.e. has been detailing some of the stories of the kids who have been separated.
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here's how, what they describe. kids detained included a 16-year-old whose father sold her to drug traffickers until her mother rescued her. first grader pulled out of school to work for her father inside the house all day with her mom, while an armed guard trapped them inside. a 9-year-old pursued by gang members at school to sell drugs for them until her mother refused and was threatened with murder. an adolescent boy forced to watch his mother have sex with his stepfather in their one-room apartment nearly every day. these are the kids who are fleeing from these countries. the oifd thidea of them getting and being separated from their families, separated from the ones who protect them, do you support that policy? >> well, there's no question that the government has a huge problem on its hands with the hundreds of thousands of people who -- families who have arrived from central america illegally,
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and they have been enticed by years of policies that allowed them to live here indefinitely and, you know, after making a claim for asylum, that many of them have no intention of ever pursuing and that they don't show up for the due process that they are given. there's no question that the government would much rather keep the families together in a holding facility while their claims can be adjudicated. >> is there no question about that? because they would like to do that, why are they separating the families? that's just the first point. we want to talk about these holding facilities, i want to go to the images again of the holding facilities, of these detention centers. is that a good place to keep families? i mean, my question to you is more do you support the policy of separating the kids and their families, because it's a policy of the trump administration. it is their policy. do you support it? >> well, the problem is as i said, the government would much
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rather keep the families together, but groups like the aclu and others have brought lawsuits that have said the children cannot be detained even if they are with their parents. so they are faced with a tough choice. in a case as you described where a parent has paid a smuggler to bring their child here or a parent has rented their child to someone in the hopes that the presence of that child is going to help that person get into the country illegally, that's wrong, and those cases need to be prosecuted, and when parents knowingly enter the country illegally and are getting prosecuted, now the government has to do what, you know, can't send that child to a detention center, federal prison. they have got to have some system for dealing with it. >> these aren't federal prisons, are they? let's look at these detention centers again. >> no, they are -- okay. i can't see the pictures that you're showing, but there are
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family detention centers that exist, but they have been shut down by lawsuits in some cases, and now they are full because there are so many people coming here because they have been enticed by this policy, hoping to be released -- >> isn't -- >> that's causing big problems in communities. immigration laws are not some obsolete laws that don't deserve to be enforced anymore. the government has to find a balance between being able to enforce our laws so we have some integrity in our immigration system, and treating the people who are subject to those laws with humanity and it's not an easy thing. again, there are some cases where it's a slam-dunk that the child needs to be separated from the person that brought them over because the child is at risk. there are other cases where the parents are going to have to face consequences and one of those consequences is that they are going to be separated from their child during their
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deportation proceeding. >> jessica, hold on. i want to get lee to answer one more question before we run out of time entirely. detention centers. these detention centers that we are showing are from 2015. again, i want to make a point this crosses all administrations. this has been going on for years. this sort of thing, where immigrants are kept in these facilities and covered with these space blankets so they can keep warm in these facilities that don't have medical treatment or toilet paper or they perhaps have food that is unhealthy -- not unhealthy but food that has gone bad. >> this is a border facility. not a family facility. >> let lee talk for a second. this is the detention center. how has this been allowed to go on for as long as it has? >> i think because immigrants have been dehumanized. no one knows what goes on on the border. you're right, it goes back a long way. we have been pushing back against detention centers and
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i.c.e. detention centers for a long time. what is new is the separation of little children and it is absolutely wrong that any law, including any aclu lawsuit, requires the separation of families and children. this is a trump administration policy and i did not hear jessica answer your question, does she support ripping little children away from their parents. we can talk about a lot of large immigration policy issues and we can disagree about those, but i think the question on the table right now, because there's little kids suffering, begging for their mommies and daddies, do people on both sides of the aisle support that. that's the question on the table right now. we can talk about larger immigration policies -- >> are they being enticed to come into this country by our lax policies? >> i think they are fleeing -- jessica is talking about people abusing the system. the people who are being separated from their kids passed the government's own asylum screening interviews. the people in our lawsuit have passed the initial asylum test.
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they are bona fide asylum seekers. they are still having their child ripped away. >> are they trying to sneak into the country? >> they are asylum seekers and are being prosecuted. let me make one point clear. you always hear the attorney general and secretary nielsen talk about people sneaking across the border. lots of people in our lawsuit presented through the port of entry are still having their kids taken away. it is absolutely misleading to suggest the only way you have your kids taken from you is if you cross the border. what we have said about the border crossers are we don't think they should be prosecuted, we don't think it's legal to prosecute them, but if you prosecute them, they only get a couple days, it's a misdemeanor. then they never get their children back. eight months go by, seven months, nine months, they never get their children back once they come out of jail. no one ever asked the secretary or attorney general why don't you give the children back after the prosecution. >> just to be clear, there's no aclu lawsuit that demands that children be separated from
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families because of the detention centers? >> absolutely not. that law is to protect children. if a parent doesn't want her 18 month old sent to strangers, she can keep the 18 month old in detention. it doesn't require brutal separation of parents and children. >> guys, thank you very much. appreciate it. that right there is going to wrap things up for this hour of it's been a wild hour. first roseanne gone and trying to hash out what's going on in the immigration system. interesting. >> never a dull moment. very much enjoyed watching your conversation. we will continue it here. good afternoon. i'm kasie hunt. this hour, president trump is getting back on the campaign trail. in about a half hour, the president will leave the wlohit house to spend the evening with supporters in downtown nashville. he could speak just before he takes off. there are a lot of headlines to ask the president about. first up, abc's decision to
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cancel the show "roseanne" which comes after the star, roseanne barr, referred to valerie jarrett in a tweet as a child of the muslim brotherhood and planet of the apes. the president has said in the past what a fan he is of the show. no word yet on how he feels about its cancellation. then there's immigration. nbc news has learned the trump administration will soon require fingerprints from parents coming to claim their migrant children from the u.s. department of health and human services. also this hour, summit whiplash continuing. not even a week after president trump officially canceled his summit with kim jong-un in a letter, president trump says his administration continues to quote, actively prepare for the event. in singapore, it was scheduled to take place in exactly two weeks. now one of north korea's senior officials is on his way to new york tot


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