Stephen Colbert explains Trump's 'failed gamble' on immigration and deplores its cost to migrant children

Customs and Border Protection chief John Sanders is stepping down amid reports of deplorable conditions for detained child migrants, Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. "You know what they say: When the going gets tough, the tough go, 'Good luck with that, sucks to be you.'" He imagined Sanders trying to explain "violating the Geneva Conventions" during his next job interview, unsuccessfully: "I'm sorry, but you're just not Chuck E. Cheese material — and may I remind you, we terrify children with a giant animatronic rat."

President Trump threw Sanders under the bus then "made mouth sounds with the hole about his 'concern' for children," Colbert said. "But Trump is wrong and he knows it. This crisis is not some mistake caused by a sudden rush to the border. People who work down there say it's the result of a failed gamble on the part of the Trump administration that a succession of ever-harder border policies would deter the flood of migrants coming from Central America. And it's not Trump's only failed gamble — his original idea for the border was the Trump Taj Matrocity and Child Hotel."

Colbert said what makes the United States great "is what we believe in — all men are created equal; life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness" — but "the problem with high ideals" is that "you actually have to live up to them, and with these kids on the border, we're not just failing to live up to our own standards," but also the standards of Somali pirates and the Taliban.

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Trump's "courageous defense of his policies" is the lie that they are actually Barack Obama's policies, Colbert said. "Mr. President, you're not fooling anybody. We all remember that you ran on a racist, anti-immigration platform, and you're still running on it today. At this point, the only family separation America wants to see is yours from the White House." Watch below. Peter Weber