Congressional Republicans want nothing to do with the Trump administration's policy of separating families who immigrated illegally at the border — so much so that they may issue him an extremely rare public rebuke.
And Corey Lewandowski just showed why.
The former Trump campaign-manager-turned-pundit took to Fox News on Tuesday night to provide the rare defense of the policy. Even Trump and his White House, you see, have decried what they claim is the necessity of separating families to comply with the law (however dubious his argument may be). But Lewandowski was only so happy to pretend it's no big deal to have children separated from their parents and put in what amounts to large cages.
Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas baited Lewandowski by bringing up particularly harrowing reports of children being separated from their parents when he landed on one of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome falling victim to this policy. And Lewandowski swallowed the bait whole. This was the moment that he, for some reason, decided to stake out a principled position that such anecdotes were distractions.
Almost immediately after Petkanas recounted the story of the “10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was taken from her mother and put in a cage,” Lewandowski emitted what was either a “womp womp” or a “wah wah” — depending on your spelling. Basically, he was imitating a game-show buzzer when a contestant's fortunes have taken a turn for the worse. The clear subtext: This girl with Down syndrome's plight is unimportant.
It was precisely the wrong argument at the wrong time, and it's sure to be played on loop by opponents of the policy. It was also an almost-inescapable episode in this extremely fraught gambit by the Trump administration.
Whatever you think of the underlying law and what it requires, taking the step of separating children from their parents at the border was always going to mean dealing with visuals and audio that make you look crass and heartless. It's nearly impossible to listen to that ProPublica audio and not cringe.
Prosecuting the case for the policy, then, requires discipline. The White House hasn't exactly been disciplined, but it also hasn't tried to pretend stories like the 10-year-old girl's aren't tragic. Yet its decision to go down this road was definitely going to lead to the likes of Lewandowski taking their defenses too far. Plenty of Lewandowskis were going to be baited on Fox News and elsewhere, and a few of them were going to be dumb enough to take the bait.
Lewandowski is trying to fight back, claiming he has been wronged by the media. His response accuses opponents of “politicizing” children and ignoring the “real issue.” Those words are almost always clear tells that a person can't win an argument on its merits. He's forced — yet again — to argue that a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome being separated from her parents is negligible and a distraction. It's exactly what Petkanas was shooting for in the first place.
But this is the battle the Trump administration has chosen. Most Republicans are smart enough not to rush to the front lines — and in fact are taking stands against the administration and even suggesting it is wrong to say this action was legally required. But all of them now have to deal with defenders such as Lewandowski damaging their party's cause — and giving Democrats exactly the sound bite they had hoped for when this whole thing began.
And who could have imagined it would come from the guy who lied about grabbing a reporter.