“It’s MSDNC, so I expect nothing less from you clowns,” Donald Trump Jr. snapped at MSNBC reporter Jake Soboroff Monday during the first night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisc. “Even today, even 48 hours later. You couldn’t wait, you couldn’t wait, with your lies and with your nonsense. Just get out of here.”
Trump Jr. was referring to the fact that his father, the former president and current GOP candidate for president, survived an assassination attempt Saturday during a rally in Pennsylvania. At the convention, Donald Trump could be seen with a bandage on his ear, which was injured in the shooting that claimed one life. Photos from the rally show blood running down Trump’s face.
Before Trump Jr. told Soboroff to “just leave,” the reporter asked him about the Trump immigration policy he said resulted in “separating 5,000 children deliberately from their parents.”
In response, the former president’s son quipped: “You mean the Obama administration.”
“You know they didn’t do that,” Soboroff shot back.
Immigration policy and practice in the U.S. is complicated to say the least. Here’s some information that might clear up this exchange.
In 2017, the Trump administration directed federal agents to criminally charge parents with illegally entering the country and separate them from their children, per The Texas Tribune. Those children were transferred to the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Publicly announced in May 2018, the policy resulted in immigration agents separating more than 4,000 children from their parents,” said the Tribune.
According to CNN, Trump has long claimed he inherited the separation policy from the administration of former President Barack Obama (which, of course included current President Joe Biden serving as vice president). A fact check report from the outlet found that this claim is incorrect.
“While separations did occur under Obama, it was only done under exceptional circumstances and was not a result of a blanket policy,” it said.
However, the Obama administration’s immigration policies have been criticized too. CNN noted that some of the “cages” where children were kept were built during the Obama years and immigration groups even called the Democratic leader “deporter in chief.”
Trump has regularly criticized the current administration’s border policy during his current campaign for the White House. In a Truth Social post from earlier this month, he claimed Biden is promoting “policies of Open Borders (where millions of people, including record numbers of Terrorists, are allowed to enter our Country, from prisons and mental institutions, totally unchecked and unvetted!).”
At the same time, the Biden administration has received pushback for cracking down on immigration.
“Immigrants’ rights groups today sued the Biden administration over the president’s proclamation and a new rule that severely restricts asylum and puts thousands of lives at risk,” said a press release issued by the American Civil Liberties Union last month. According to The Texas Tribune, the Biden administration also settled a lawsuit regarding Trump’s migrant separation policy last October. That settlement called for a prohibition on any similar policy for at least eight years.
Trump Jr. later shared video of his interaction with Soboroff on his X page. During their talk he said he believes his father is “under constant attack,” and that he thinks his father’s achievements are often misrepresented by the media.