This morning on New Day, the CNN panel tried to untangle the circumstances of Kristjen Neilsen's resignation.
"She wrote a resignation letter. the president tweeted out her departure before she was able to send the resignation letter and like the letter from Secretary Mattis several months ago, it doesn't thank the president for the opportunity to serve in his cabinet. Doesn't even mention the president of the United States. I think that tells us something about how she feels this departure went down," John Berman said.
"John, she goes into the meeting knowing it could end effectively how it ended, although the details, to be determined. but she goes into the meeting, all the reporting suggests to try to reset the way things have been going," said Margaret Talev.
"The president wanted to be more aggressive about border controls. In the last few weeks, the president empowered Stephen Miller, who everybody knows as a chief domestic adviser and speech writer for the president or the president's voice, empowered Stephen Miller to take a leadership role overseeing immigration policy. What we have seen is the president removing his own ICE guy, immigrations and custom guy, pulling the nomination. Do you remember nobody knew what was going on for hours and following up with this move on Kirstjen Nielsen. The president ramping up the 2020 imperative to show toughness on stopping the flow of undocumented immigrants to the border, and how the country is full and so forth."
"It is interesting to hear the president say 'Go home, turn around.' I don't have it with me right now. I don't have my fingers on it now but it was something to the effect of, he said 'No more, go away,'" Alysin Camerota said.
"'Country's full. And these people are like UFC fighters, not babies," Berman said.
"No more room at the inn. You have been to Honduras. What could be the answer here?" Camerota asked David Cay Johnston.
"Donald is taking a problem and making it worse," said Johnston. "Honduras is a criminalized society. Cab drivers and bus drivers get shot if they don't have (money)-- in their pockets for ransom for their lives. One of the local newspapers ran a chart on the front page of which drug gang ran which part of the city. By saying he'll close the border, the message people get down there is, 'If you have children, the gangs will turn into prostitutes or drug runners, leave now.'
"So Donald exacerbates a problem and then gets rid of his secretary who isn't able to address the problem he created. This is classic Donald Trump."
