BORDER/CHILDREN/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump remained resistant on Monday [6-18-18] in the face of growing public outcry over his administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border, repeating the false assertion that Democrats were the ones to blame for it, and suggesting that criminals — not parents — were toting juveniles to the United States. ‘They could be murderers and thieves and so much else,’ Mr. Trump said of the people crossing the border, as he delivered somewhat incongruous remarks during a meeting of the National Space Council on Monday…For several days, senior members of the administration, some declining to speak on the record, have used blame as a roundabout defense tactic for a policy that has seen nearly 2,000 children taken away from their parents in a six-week period and drawn condemnation from a chorus of Republican and Democratic critics. Those critics have included a group of Democratic lawmakers, President Bill Clinton and Laura Bush, the last Republican first lady. The current first lady, Melania Trump, also weighed in, calling for ‘a country that governs with a heart.’”
-Katie Rogers and Eileen Sullivan, “Trump Repeats Assertion That Democrats Are to Blame for Separating Children at Border,” The New York Times online, June 18, 2018