Find me a crying mother: STAT!
It's a classic liberal-media tactic. Want to combat a conservative policy? Find individual instances that will play on the public's heartstrings.
In a segment today on Trump's executive order banning birthright citizenship, CNN This Morning provided a classic example of the strategy. Former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield teed up the scenario: "I think Trump seems, uh, sometimes to be quite gleeful in pursuing policies that are, you know, hurting young children or hurting young families. You'll continue to see, I would imagine, more and more images of women with young children crying because they don't know what is going to happen to their kid."
Thompson echoed that thought, that Democrats will have every incentive that we will "start seeing these images, potentially of families being split up, potentially, you know, this gleeful nature."
Then reverse the thought: relatives of people victimized by criminal migrants will not be newsworthy anecdotes. Only the visuals that please a Democrat will be used. Remember TIME magazine's phony 2018 cover placing a crying little girl in front of President Trump to underline family separations. There was only one problem: this child was never separated from her mother. They were apprehended at the border. TIME's editor said never mind the accuracy stuff, this cover still "captures the stakes" of Trump's border policies.
Host Kasie Hunt was only too happy to make Thompson and Bedingfield's predictions come true. Quoting from an article in The Independent, a British newspaper, Hunt relayed the story of "Monica," a pregnant Venezuelan migrant who has been in the US for six years. According to The Independent, as a result of Trump's executive order, Monica "is stressed, anxious and 'depressed, facing a 'reality that my child might not be able to become a U.S. citizen.'”
The Independent article claimed that Monica and her husband are “trying to do everything to make their home here." Apparently, one thing Monica isn't doing to make America her home: learning English. After being in the US for six years, Monica still had to speak through an interpreter.
Hunt claimed that Monica and her husband are "in the process of seeking asylum." Six years in the US, and their asylum claim hasn't been adjudicated one way or the other? Sounds like Monica is "seeking asylum" about as diligently as she has been learning English. And with Biden in office for the last four years, why bother?
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
1/24/25
6:08 am ETKATE BEDINGFIELD: The point of immigration enforcement should not be cruelty. I think this is where Democrats can really split, um, with the Trump administration. I think Trump seems sometimes to be quite gleeful in pursuing policies that are, you know, hurting young children or hurting young families.
You'll continue to see, I would imagine, more and more, uh, you know, images of women with young children crying because they don't know what is going to happen to their kid. I mean, there are, um, human and painful images that emerge that Trump, I think, sometimes comes across as seeming gleeful about. And that is where I think Democrats can very aggressively split with him.
. . .
ALEX THOMPSON: There is every political incentive for a lot of Democrats to end up, to try to stand up to the Trump administration when they start doing these orders. And when we start seeing these images, potentially of families being split up, potentially, you know, this gleeful nature.
And so I think you're going to actually see a bunch of Democrats, not even just Denver, I think you're going to see a bunch of Democrats across the country try to actually stand up to some of these actions.
KASIE HUNT: Yeah, Elliot, let me ask you about this, just because the one pregnant woman talked to The Independent, the newspaper The Independent, and her name is Monica. Monica and her husband arrived in the U.S. from Venezuela six years ago. They've been building a life, trying to do everything to make their home here. They're in the process of seeking asylum.
Obviously, Venezuela has had so much political violence and challenges. "'Working, paying taxes. We were able to buy a home', she said. 'We had reached a point of stability in this country and wanted to have a child.' She's now 12 weeks pregnant. 'I should be worried about the health of my child. I should be thinking about that,' she said. Instead, she is stressed, anxious, and 'depressed,' facing reality that my child might not be able to become a US citizen."
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: It was quite deliberate that some of the immigration groups that filed suits named pregnant women as plaintiffs, knowing that this sort of legal limbo was going to come up and they could present to the courts that, you know, look at the mess that this has created for people who plainly, by any reading of the Constitution, are citizens and will be citizens of the United States.
You don't have to like it. If you don't like it, amend the Constitution, get, you know, two-thirds of the states to agree to it. But this is the law. It has been since the founding of the nation. Make it work.
