Late-night host John Oliver on Sunday slammed President Trump for claiming his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separates families at the U.S.-Mexico border is law, saying that it is instead a deliberate policy choice by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Oliver, a frequent critic of the president, also ripped Trump for his Friday comments in which he said he wanted “beautiful, humane but strong” laws for immigrants crossing the border.
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“OK, so first, ‘beautiful, humane but strong,’ that is not how you describe a law,” Oliver said on his show “Last Week Tonight.”
“Democrats did not give them these laws, because there is no law that suddenly requires separating parents from their children. This was the result of a deliberate policy choice by Jeff Sessions, a man so small he can wear a raspberry as a hat.”
Trump has continually blamed Democrats incorrectly for the policy which Sessions implemented in April. The policy mandates the Department of Homeland Security separates any child from a parent crossing the border if the parent is facing prosecution. It is carried out even if a migrant is seeking asylum.
The Associated Press reported on Friday that nearly 2,000 children had been separated from their parents from mid-April to the end of May.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has defended the policy by saying it is “very biblical to enforce the law,” which Oliver took issue with while pointing to a number of controversies Trump has been ensnared in over the years.
“You probably shouldn’t use the Bible to justify separating children from parents, but if you do, maybe make sure that you’re not breaking so many of its rules that God has to write an extra commandment that says I was f—ing serious,” Oliver said.
Oliver has often targeted Trump and his administration. In early June, he called the photo op Trump took with a North Korean envoy at the White House a “propaganda coup.”