Playboy Reporter, Sarah Sanders Clash Over Migrant Family Separation: ‘Don’t You Have Any Empathy?’

“You’re a parent of young children,” chides White House correspondent Brian Karem

Brian Karen, a White House correspondent for Playboy who has clashed with Sarah Sanders in the past, demanded she answer questions Wednesday about the Trump administration policy of separating undocumented parents and children at the U.S. border.

“You’re a parent. Don’t you have any empathy?” he asked. “C’mon Sarah, you’re a parent. Don’t you have any empathy for what these people are going through? They have less than you. Seriously.”

He added: “These people have nothing. They come to the border with nothing and you throw children in cages. You’re a parent. You’re a parent of young children. Don’t you have any empathy for what they go through?”

Karem had not been called on, as Sanders noted.

“Brian, gosh, settle down. I’m trying to be serious, but I am not going to have you yell out of turn,” she said. “Hey, Brian. I know you want to get some more TV time, but that’s not what this is about.”

Sanders also repeated for Karem and everyone else the administration’s official line that the separation policy was just the Trump team enforcing existing immigration laws

“Our administration has had the same position since we started on day one, that we’re going to enforce the law,” she said. “We’re a country of law and order. We’re enforcing the law and protecting our borders.”

The Playboy reporter has a long and colorful history in journalism, even once going to jail early in his career to protect the identity of a source. He also clashed with Sanders last year.

Many news organizations have run reports covering the separation policy, but misinformation has run rampant on social media. Snopes noted recently that a photo that many say shows a child caged by border officials was actually a picture of a child at a protest.

The New York Times recently provided a lengthy explainer on the confusing reports about what is really happening on the U.S. border.

MSNBC journalist Jacob Soboroff, who just visited a facility for undocumented immigrants in Brownsville, Texas, described prison-like conditions, though he specifically said on-air that there were “no cages” in the center.

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