Of all the unjustifiably cruel things that the Trump administration has done, its callous and life-threatening treatment of immigrants is among the worst. There is absolutely no defense for the treatment the government is subjecting immigrants to—and yet today, The View’s Meghan McCain really tried it. While she didn’t defend the administration’s family separation policy (a low bar, really), she seemed to have few issues with anything else.
We all know that while McCain is supposed to be the resident conservative on the panel, she essentially gets paid to not know what she’s talking about (she literally did not know her co-host Sunny Hostin, a senior legal correspondent and analyst for ABC News, was a journalist) and be a very whiny punching bag.
But today on the show, McCain actually attempted to defend the inhumane and racist treatment of brown people by our government after the panel already agreed that children shouldn’t be locked up. Via Raw Story:
I believe in comprehensive immigration reform. I believe in the idea we are all god’s children, and what you just read on the Statue of Liberty. We are a nation of borders and laws. A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation, according to Ronald Reagan.
It’s the perfect combination of nationalistic and completely ambiguous. Either way, to frame what this country is doing to people, including turning away people legally seeking asylum, as simple border control requires a worryingly severe lack of compassion.
Of course, when pushed on this defense, McCain explained that this is what we asked for by voting for Donald Trump:
I’m saying what President Trump ran on is what he is enforcing, and I think that when Jeff Sessions says this, you can’t be surprised that when you have a hardline — the most hardline immigration candidate of my lifetime, who runs on hardline immigration and the economy and ends up winning, that this is what happens. It’s why voting is so important, and I think sometimes when we’re sitting in a beautiful studio in the middle of Manhattan, you forget what’s happening at the border. I don’t believe in separating children from parents.
It’s an extremely convenient excuse because she clearly agrees with “hardline immigration” (except for separating children from parents), but doesn’t want to take any responsibility.
When Whoopi Goldberg reminded McCain that people attempting to legally obtain asylum are also being targeted, McCain pulled her usual antics and complained about how hard it was to have such bad opinions!
I know when I say this — by the way, like, I know that when I’m coming on here saying this, I know how unpopular it is. I’m not a snowflake. I know what I’m saying. I know that no one in this room probably agrees with me. I know that nobody at this table agrees with me. I also know that I am from a border state, and if we are a nation without borders and laws, then we are not a nation.
Again, this deliberate conflation of several different complicated ideas regarding immigration—America contributing to the violence people are fleeing from; the militarization of our borders; people whose communities straddle the border; and the constant flouting of law by the Trump administration among others—is extremely dangerous.