During the Tuesday night broadcast of her MSNBC talk show, Rachel Maddow began to describe a breaking AP story about the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy and its effect on migrant families. Maddow struggled to read the first sentence—"Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border to at least three 'tender age' shelters in South Texas"—stopping every few words to try to regain her composure.

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

Maddow tweeted an apologetic message shortly after the show ended:

Ugh, I'm sorry.

If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I'm on TV.

What I was trying to do -- when I suddenly couldn't say/do anything -- was read this lede:

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— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018

"Trump administration officials have been sending babies and other young children forcibly separated from their parents to at least three “tender age” shelters in South Texas...

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— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018

"Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the "tender age" shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis...

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— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018

"Decades after the nation’s child welfare system ended the use of orphanages over concerns about the lasting trauma to children, the administration is standing up new institutions to hold Central American toddlers that the government separated from their parents...

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— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018

“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, “Toddlers are being detained.”

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— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018

All from this Associated Press story that broke while I was on the air tonight, but which I was unable to read on the air:https://t.co/2VBLTVxvQq

Again, I apologize for losing it there for a moment. Not the way I intended that to go, not by a mile.
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20, 2018

Others understood why Maddow broke; Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffrey summed up the feelings of many:

Whe @maddow is too choked up to finish a segment you know we are in deep fucking shit
— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) June 20, 2018

Meanwhile, over on Fox News, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski mocked the children when Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas mentioned a 10-year-old migrant child with Down syndrome being separated from her parents:

.@Zac_Petkanas says on Fox News a 10-year-old girl with Down Syndrome was separated from her mother at the border.

Corey Lewandowski responds: "Womp womp." pic.twitter.com/cZMXWmwbjw
— Jon Passantino (@passantino) June 19, 2018

Since early May, over 2,300 children have been taken from their parents at the southern border and placed in makeshift government-funded facilities. (Yahoo News has revealed five of the companies that are profiting off of operating the facilities.) An untold number of the children are pre-verbal, and it's unclear how they will be reunited with their parents, if ever.

Alicia Lieberman, who runs the Early Trauma Treatment Network at University of California, San Francisco, said the separations are likely to cause permanent psychological damage for the children.

"Children are biologically programmed to grow best in the care of a parent figure," Lieberman told the AP. "When that bond is broken through long and unexpected separations with no set timeline for reunion, children respond at the deepest physiological and emotional levels. Their fear triggers a flood of stress hormones that disrupt neural circuits in the brain, create high levels of anxiety, make them more susceptible to physical and emotional illness, and damage their capacity to manage their emotions, trust people, and focus their attention on age-appropriate activities."

Some Senate Republicans are searching for a way out of the border crisis, and last night some House Republicans met with President Trump.

According to the Wall Street Journal, "In the controversy over immigrant families, Mr. Trump said: 'We have to take care of separation,' according to a lawmaker in the room. 'It’s too nasty, it’s too nasty.'" However, the WSJ notes, "[H]e stopped short of telling them he would immediately reverse a widely condemned policy that has separated thousands of migrant children from their parents."

Here's how you can help the migrant children.

Rachel Maddow Breaks Down During Broadcast About Migrant Babies Being Taken From Parents