“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough has called on Vice President Pence to re-read his Bible after disagreeing with the views he expressed in a CNN interview over the weekend.
CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed the VP over the conditions that migrant children are being held on the US-Mexico border. In an amicable discussion, Pence spoke indirectly against what was argued by a Department of Justice lawyer, who suggested that children detained at the border don’t need toothbrushes and showers in order to be held in sanitary conditions.
“Aren’t toothbrushes and blankets and medicine, basic conditions for kids, aren’t they a part of how the United States of America, the Trump administration treats children?” Tapper asked. “Well, of course they are, Jake,” Pence replied, adding that he “can’t speak to what that lawyer was saying.”
But despite the pair seemingly agreeing that more legislative provisions needed to be passed on a bipartisan basis in order to facilitate better care at the border, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, bizarrely, still decided to tear into Pence’s deeply-held Christian beliefs.
“Mike Pence is lying about children living in torturous positions right there. Mike Pence, who claims to be a Christian, a devout Christian — I’m sure he is, but he uses it as a political badge of honor,” Joe said, live on air.
He continued: “Mike should read the gospels again and see what Jesus says about the treatment of little children. You can start at Luke 17:2,” Scarborough said, “something about millstones being hung around people’s neck?”
Luke 17:2 reads:
“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”
In the interview on “State of the Nation,” Pence said that the poor detention center conditions were “one of the reasons we asked for more bed space” during the federal shutdown.
“Democrats in Congress refused to expand the bed space and the capacity for us to detain people at our borders,” he added. “It is one of the reasons why we continue to call on Congress to give (the Department of Homeland Security), Customs and Border Protection additional resources at the border.”