While she’s no stranger to delivering difficult news, Rachel Maddow was hit hard by a report she had to address Tuesday night.
The acclaimed MSNBC anchor was closing her eponymous nightly show on the network when a story about babies and kids reportedly being sent to several “tender age” migrant shelters in Texas after being forcibly separated from their parents at the border emerged. As Maddow began to read “babies and other young children,” citing an AP report, her voice started to break as she fought back tears.
Though she tried to carry on—asking her production team to put a graphic for the story up on the screen—the host was visibly affected by what she was reading and continued to fight back her emotion. Ultimately, she decided to end the show there and toss to the next hour’s host, Lawrence O’Donnell.
“I think im going to have to hand this off,” she said as she finished the segment. “Sorry—that does it for us tonight.”
Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to "tender age" shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018
The moment quickly went viral online, with many sharing the clip and commenting online.
“Ugh, I’m sorry,” she apologized on Twitter late Tuesday night. “If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I’m on TV.”
After linking to the report with the quotes she had intended to read, Maddow signed off with a second sorry.
“Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment,” she concluded. “Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile.”
