Fox’s Steve Doocy Objects To Use Of Term ‘Cages’: They’re ‘Walls’ Made Of ‘Chain-Link Fences’
Following the release of images from the Border Patrol showing migrant children that have been separated from their parents are indeed being held in cages and made to sleep on concrete floors, Trump-supporting media figures have attempted a new gambit — claiming these are instead rooms made of chain-link walls.
On today’s broadcast of Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy defended the detention centers being used by the government to detain children and pushed back on the use of the term “cages.”
“And you know, while some have likened them to concentration camps or cages, you do see that they have those thermal blankets, you do see some fencing,” the Fox News personality said. “Some have referred to them as cages, but keep in mind this a great big warehouse facility where they built walls out of chain-link fences.”
Ummmm…
Later on, during an interview with White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley that included Gidley falsely claiming the administration isn’t separating families at the border, Doocy again insisted that these aren’t cages. This time around, he mentioned that he came from a “farm community” and when he sees the “chain-link fences,” he thinks it is “more like a security pen.”
DOOCY: Some refer to these [child detention facilities] as cages. I'm from a farm community, I see the chain-link fences, it's more like a security pen to me.
GIDLEY: It's the law of the land… The Democrats decided to stand with people who are here illegally and unlawfully. pic.twitter.com/SWimLtFYoV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 18, 2018
Doocy’s remarks are remarkably similar to claims made by Breitbart’s Joel Pollak, who devoted a Sunday article to chiding the Associate Press for calling a cage a cage. See, in Pollak’s view, these are merely “chain-link partitions.”
Doocy, meanwhile, has taken quite a bit of heat already over his equivocation. Below is just a sampling:
A reminder that none of these people care about “the law” in the least. https://t.co/3u0So7SUwQ https://t.co/wFnyzVhcnt
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) June 18, 2018
You see, the kids aren’t in cages they’re just being treated like livestock. https://t.co/42esIlQe8D
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) June 18, 2018
Calling them “security pens” (while comparing the conditions in which we are housing children to farm animals) is some Orwellian s*** https://t.co/gUiGl9gwI5
— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) June 18, 2018
They’re not cages, they’re chain-link fences.
It’s not Trump, it’s the Democrats.
Family separation is fake news; family separation is the law.https://t.co/X9bY6D3Kex
— Brian Tashman (@briantashman) June 18, 2018
“They’re not in cages, they’re being kept like livestock,” is not a great defense https://t.co/CWkrIZaTNS
— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) June 18, 2018
No, these aren't cages, @SteveDoocy says. The authorities simply "built walls out of chain-link fences." Yes, that's a real quote from Fox just now. pic.twitter.com/7oVQ6oE85x
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 18, 2018
