Fox’s “straight news” anchor Martha MacCallum was so eager to defend Donald Trump's family separations policy in an interview with Marianne Williamson, the host actually called the policy a kindness to immigrant children “in some cases.”
Williamson did a good job of pushing back against MacCallum’s baloney without becoming antagonistic.
First, MacCallum defended Trump’s family separations by saying President Barack Obama did it, too. As if Fox would ever defend anything Obama did except in service of propping up Dear Leader Trump. But in any event, this is at best misleading and either anchor MacCallum is misinformed on one of the main topics in the news or she deliberately deceived her viewers.
From FactCheck.org:
In defending its “zero tolerance” border policy that has caused the separation of families, the Trump administration has argued that the Obama and Bush administrations did this too. That’s misleading. Experts say there were some separations under previous administrations, but no blanket policy to prosecute parents and, therefore, separate them from their children.
“Bush and Obama did not have policies that resulted in the mass separation of parents and children like we’re seeing under the current administration,” Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, told us.
That was bad enough.
But after Williamson challenged the claim, MacCallum came up with the "Trump's doing the kids a favor" line:
Williamson shot back that “we have trained agents” at the border “who know how to vet that.”
MacCallum didn’t bother to provide numbers on how many children have been “helped” by being put in cages and separated from the adults they came with when they arrive here.
Later, when Williamson called for more ports of entry at the border, MacCallum tried to score a cheap partisan point by disingenuously saying, “So you think we should just let them through.” This, despite the fact that Williamson had repeatedly said she’s for legal immigration and not for open borders.
Williamson had a good comeback, though. She told MacCallum to stop putting words in her mouth.
Watch MacCallum prove herself a Trump mouthpiece and nothing close to the “ultimate journalistic integrity and professionalism” Fox News claims above, from the August 7, 2019 The Story with Martha MacCallum.
Published with permission from News Hounds.
