POLITICO PLAYBOOK: What the VP saw at the border

By ANNA PALMER, JAKE SHERMAN and DANIEL LIPPMAN 07/13/2019 09:01 AM EDT

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A DAY FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS … WAPO’S JOSH DAWSEY in McAllen, Texas, and COLBY ITKOWITZ in Washington: “‘This is tough stuff’: At Texas detention facility, Pence sees hundreds of migrants crammed with no beds”: “When Vice President Pence visited a migrant detention center here Friday, he saw nearly 400 men crammed behind caged fences with not enough room for them all to lie down on the concrete ground. There were no mats or pillows for those who found the space to rest. A stench from body odor hung stale in the air.

“When reporters toured the facility before Pence, the men screamed that they’d been held there 40 days, some longer. They said they were hungry and wanted to brush their teeth. It was sweltering hot, but the only water was outside the fences and they needed to ask permission from the Border Patrol agents to drink.

“Pence appeared to scrunch his nose when entering the facility, stayed for a moment and left. A few minutes earlier, from a bird’s eye room called ‘The Bubble,’ he’d seen 382 men packed into cells, peering against the windows to get a view of him. Some appeared shirtless. … ‘I was not surprised by what I saw,’ Pence said later at a news conference. ‘I knew we’d see a system that was overwhelmed.’ He added: ‘This is tough stuff.’” WaPo … Read Josh’s pool report, which is not easy to read

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https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2019/07/13/what-the-vp-saw-at-the-border-456648