BORDER/CHILDREN/IMMIGRATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Donald Trump’s aides are struggling to defend their talking points on the furor over the administration’s practice of separating families who enter the U.S. illegally, with officials and spokespeople engaging in heated exchanges with little backing from congressional Republicans. As the outcry has grown over the family separations, Trump officials have dug in on blaming Democrats for the controversy, on insisting that they’re simply enforcing the law, and on claiming that they’re not using the emotional debate to extract concessions on Trump’s border wall and other priorities. But they’ve faced fierce blowback during interviews and press briefings, and fact checks have piled up discrediting the Trump administration’s justifications. In an interview with NPR Tuesday morning, deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley laid particular blame for the situation on the nation’s southern border on Democrats, the minority party in both houses of Congress.”
-Louis Nelson, “Trump aides taking heat over family separation talking points,” Politico, June 19, 2018 11:33 am