Trump mocks children he put in cages as 'phony stories of sadness'

Demonstrating for the zillionth time that he has no soul or shred of decency, Trump dismissed the thousands of children he’s taken from their families and put in cages and tent cities as “phony stories of sadness and grief.”

“We cannot allow our Country to be overrun by illegal immigrants as the Democrats tell their phony stories of sadness and grief, hoping it will help them in the elections,” he tweeted Friday. “Obama and others had the same pictures, and did nothing about it!”

Trump’s attacks are lies, as every media outlet has noted in its fact-checking over and over and over again. The Trump administration instituted a new policy of taking children from their parents at the border. That was not the policy of the prior administration, even though Trump and his spokespeople have repeatedly lied and insisted otherwise.

But what is even more horrific is that Trump is shrugging off those scared and scarred children suffering under his policy as “phony stories” and mere “pictures.” But this is not about photographs; it’s about families being torn apart.

His administration seized nearly 2,000 children in the first 42 days alone of its new policy. That number has continued to climb.

And those families are indeed suffering unspeakable sadness and grief. How anyone could hear about a woman whose infant was taken from her while she was breastfeeding and mock it as some Democratic election scheme is unimaginable.

Then there is the story of Marco Antonio Muño, who killed himself while being detained in a Texas jail after being separated from his wife and 3-year-old son. His grief, and now the grief of his family, certainly isn’t “phony.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s practice has been widely condemned, not just in the United States, but around the world.

“The thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable,” said Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations’ high commissioner on human rights.

The president of the American Association of Pediatrics also denounced Trump’s policy as “government-sanctioned child abuse.”

Sadly, and horrifically, dismissing stories that make Trump and other conservatives look bad as “phony” is an all too common tactic by the right. Pro-Trump media, for example, smeared David Hogg, one of the students who survived the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February, as a “crisis actor.”

Earlier this week, the pro-Trump propaganda network Sinclair Broadcast Group required its local affiliates to run a segment accusing “media and opponents of the president” of overhyping the Trump-created crisis at the border.

“While some of the concern is real, a lot of it is politically driven by the liberals in politics and the media,” said commentator and former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn.

Trump made his hostility and hatred for immigrants clear from the first day of his presidential campaign. He has ramped up his ugly rhetoric since then, calling the immigrants he is harming as “animals.”

Now, rather than accept responsibility for the heartbreaking chaos that is a direct result of his unnecessary and inhumane decisions, he’s trying to blame Democrats for inventing the whole thing.

Shame on him.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.