“Our President Is Unstable”: A Senator Tears into Trump's Reckless Racism
The Mother Jones Podcast
Mother Jones
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2019
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
Late last year, Senator Jeff Merkley was one of the first national politicians to blow the whistle on the Trump administration's detention of unaccompanied migrant children on the southern border. The Democratic senator sat down with Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery at the Commonwealth Club last week, where he spoke in no uncertain terms about the administration's pattern of targeting of immigrants, the trauma caused by incarceration, and why the future of the United States hinges on kicking Trump out of office.
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Mother Jones Podcast. I'm Jimmy King in New York. |
| 0:05.0 | On today's show, one of the... |
| 0:12.0 | On today's show, one of the first senators to blow the whistle on the detention of |
| 0:18.5 | unaccompanied migrant children on the southern border. And I thought no, there's no way any American government would ever employ the strategy |
| 0:26.9 | of harming children as a political strategy. |
| 0:30.4 | After the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy was announced, |
| 0:34.0 | United States Senator Jeff Merckley flew into Texas to investigate conditions inside the packed shelters. |
| 0:41.0 | And as I go into the warehouse, I see these large 30 foot square chain link cages. |
| 0:46.4 | How Trump is working to shape America's attitudes toward immigrants. |
| 0:50.5 | It's a very racist strategy. He particularly came to find the easiest target is immigrants. |
| 0:57.0 | And how this administration's policies have enabled the president's worst instincts. |
| 1:03.0 | It's getting worse. |
| 1:04.4 | Our president is unstable. This is the video that changed things and it starts innocently enough. |
| 1:17.0 | This is the video that changes things and it starts innocently enough. |
| 1:22.0 | You're going to tell me when it go right? |
| 1:24.0 | You're going. |
| 1:25.0 | A man standing in the parking lot of a former Walmart |
| 1:28.0 | under a blazing Texas sun. |
| 1:30.0 | Behind those doors inside that Walmart are apparently many hundreds of children. |
| 1:35.4 | But that man is a US senator, Senator Jeff Merckley. |
| 1:38.7 | And that's why I'm here right now trying to find out exactly what's going inside on inside this building. |
| 1:44.7 | After hearing reports about the separation of migrant families, he's driven to the |
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