President Donald Trump called out the media practice of using photos of childhood detention facilities from Obama years to criticize his zero-tolerance policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump was responding specifically to a recent story in The New York Times alleging that he regretted signing an executive order last week which ended the practice of separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border. The separation was a consequence of criminally prosecuting illegal immigrants who cross the border.
“The executive order was great,” Trump said, adding, “there was a false story — fake news in The New York Times. The opposite. I wanted to sign that. I said this before I saw the fake story in The New York Times that I was very happy that I signed that.”
The president continued, “President Obama had a big problem. A lot of the pictures used they how old the — I don’t know what you folks did. You used pictures from 2014. They were taken during the Obama administration. The Bush administration had the same. It’s the same laws. They’re a disaster.”
Trump highlighted the Obama administration’s record in a Monday tweet saying:
Such a difference in the media coverage of the same immigration policies between the Obama Administration and ours. Actually, we have done a far better job in that our facilities are cleaner and better run than were the facilities under Obama. Fake News is working overtime!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018
Photos have once again resurfaced of the Obama administration’s detention facilities at the time showing tens of thousands of children from central America flooded the U.S.-Mexico border and were often kept in fenced off conditions wrapped in foil blankets.