CBS’s 60 Minutes was the latest target of a President Trump’s Twitter attack after the news-show aired a segment on families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border by his administration.
The report focused on Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy of separating and detaining thousands of parents and their children who entered the country illegally; and specifically cited that the administration held these families apart for longer than they initially admitted.
In response, Trump used a similar defense as he has in the past, harking back to former presidents and his interpretation of their policies.
.@60Minutes did a phony story about child separation when they know we had the exact same policy as the Obama Administration. In fact a picture of children in jails was used by other Fake Media to show how bad (cruel) we are, but it was in 2014 during O years. Obama separated….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018
“60Minutes did a phony story about child separation when they know we had the exact same policy as the Obama Administration,” Trump tweeted.
However, while the Obama administration did separate some children from their parents, it was not a “zero tolerance” policy and did not happen at nearly the same rate as under the Trump presidency, The Hill clarified.
The 60 Minutes report also included an interview with former senior adviser to the officer for civil rights and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Scott Shuchart. Shuchart said that the separation policy was pushed down from the top without insight from DHS.
“We were being asked as a department to do something that violated the civil rights and civil liberties of persons,” Shuchart, who decided to leave DHS at that time, said. “And my office was being frozen out of that process. There wasn’t a job responsibly for me to do.”
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.