"New York Times" Reports Trump Suggested Shooting Migrants In The Legs, Putting Snakes Or Alligators In Water-Filled Trench At Border
KEILAR: We're back now with our analysts and a stunning new report just out from "The New York Times." I want to read part of what is in this report coming from Michael Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis at The Times. This is based at least partially on a meeting that was happening in the Oval Office. And, according to The Times, this article is based on interviews with more than a dozen White House and admin officials directly involved in the events of this week and March. Here is what it says, key passage (ph), privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench stocked with snakes and alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified with spikes on top that would pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants when they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in the meeting, aides recalled he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That's not allowed either, they told him. And at another point, he said, you are making me look like an idiot, to some of these aides, he shouted adding in a profanity, as multiple officials in the room described it, I ran on this, it's my issue. Dana?</s>BASH: He did run on it and it is his issue. And, first of all, we know Michael and Julie. They had been working on this book, a book that they have on immigration coming out soon for months and months and months, probably more than a year. And we know from our own reporting on immigration for the past two years how irate the president has gotten at various points at his own staff, including, and maybe especially, his former Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, for, in his -- from his perspective, not pushing hard enough. Not just her but other aides, as described by this report. One other quote in here that is certainly going to get a lot of buzz where he allegedly says to his Homeland Security secretary at the time, Kirstjen, you didn't hear me the first time, honey, Mr. Trump said, according to two people familiar with the conversation, shoot them down, sweetheart. Just shoot them out of the sky, okay?</s>KEILAR: These are human beings. These are human beings. He is not speaking about human beings as if they're --</s>BASH: Just to be clear, out of the sky, he was talking about drones.</s>KEILAR: Yes, okay, drones. I'm talking about the --</s>BASH: His desire to use drones at the border.</s>KEILAR: Drones, yes, and flesh-piercing spikes on electrified fences.</s>TOOBIN: And alligators and snakes. I mean, you know, this is -- we have to decide. I mean, one of the issues about the Trump years is we have to decide really kind of country we are, I mean, because if you want to stop people like they are animals, maybe you do put alligators in. But if you want to treat desperate people who are trying to get into the United States like human beings, you don't even consider insanity like this, much less separating them from their young children once they manage to get here.</s>GANGEL: This, I think, speaks to the kinds of conversations that, as Bob Woodward reported in his book, John Kelly said, you know, it was crazy town in there, when you hear these kinds of words. And also he snaps at his son-in-law in their reporting. He says to Jared Kushner, who had developed relationships with Mexican officials and sided with Kirstjen Nielsen, Trump said, quote, all you care about is your friends in Mexico. I've had it. I want it done the noon tomorrow.</s>KEILAR: And that's talking about a complete shutdown of the border. Shawn?</s>TURNER: Yes, Brianna. And as -- I wish that we could all be surprised by this, but you know there's another part of this that's to come, and that is that some time in the coming hours, there are going to be people who support the president who are going to come on the air on CNN, on other networks and they're going to say, this is just Trump being Trump. And they're going to say it's no big deal, they're going to try to dismiss it, they're going to say that we're getting worked up about nothing. But the truth is that, as we all know, this president doesn't just say these things. You can tell by the tone and tenor of the story, and I know these reporters. He's serious when he suggests these things. Look, I think I've said before, this is bad for the country because I think that we all, whether we're on the left or right, we want our president to be successful. We want him to do his job of protecting and leading this nation. But at this point, when you see things like this, you recognize that this president has very little respect for human life, has very little respect for anyone who das does not fit into his definition of a Trump loyalist. So I find this appalling also in many levels. And I preemptively say shame on those people who are going to defend him after these remarks.</s>CHALIAN: I will just going to say that my first thought when I started reading through this was that this is a horrific treatment of human beings, the absurdly -- not just unpresidential behavior, but unhuman -- non-human behavior that we would want any of us to be associated with. This is also somebody who is in a political corner that feels, it seems to me, so desperate that he is not going to be able to deliver on the core promise that he made in his first campaign to his supporters. It just seems to me so completely obsessed that the most outlandish rhetoric he can put to this, it strikes me as somebody who is very concerned that they're not able to tell their supporters that he delivered his promise.</s>KEILAR: But he didn't promise shooting migrants or flesh-spearing spikes and alligators. He promised a wall. This is different.</s>CHALIAN: That Mexico would pay for it.</s>KEILAR: That's right. But this is -- I mean, a wall that Mexico would pay for and what we're seeing here, these are different things.</s>BASH: It is. It is. This is a frustrated, angry president, angry about what David has articulated, that he has not been able to deliver on a major political promise. Yes, he didn't promise all of these things but this is him lashing out in a way that we know that he has done time and time again, in ways that make his aides incredibly -- and cabinet level officials incredibly uncomfortable.</s>GANGEL: Just to connect it back to the Ukraine call and what we're dealing with, other than Kevin McCarthy on 60 minutes and Lindsey Graham last night, there have been very few Republicans out there in the last 24 hours defending him. This is not going to help.</s>KEILAR: Thank you, guys, so much. And just ahead, we're going to break down a verdict as a white former police officer is found guilty of murdering an unarmed black man in his own apartment. The jurors ignore the defendant's claim that she thought she was in her apartment.