Two wrongs don't make a right, but apparently no one told that to the Republican defenders of the Trump administration's policies of child separation and detention. On Thursday, the Republican National Committee tweeted out a video of former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson "admit[ting] to expanding family detention under President Obama" in an attempted gotcha.
Yahoo News' Hunter Walker added: "Just a reminder, Obama isn't president."
The current homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, has also used the "we didn't start it" excuse, claiming that "the Obama administration, the Bush administration all separated families … This is not new." The Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org writes that while "experts say there were some separations under previous administrations," there was "no blanket policy to prosecute parents and, therefore, separate them from their children," like the strategy announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions earlier this spring.
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Besides, "he started it!" is never the best excuse — especially when you're now the only one who can end it.
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