ICYMI: Kevin Cramer Says There’s “Nothing Inhumane” About Keeping Children in Cages, Compares them to Playgrounds

(BISMARCK, ND) — Kevin Cramer clearly doesn’t have a moral compass. Even while faith leaders and folks on both sides of the aisle have condemned the president’s family separation policy, Cramer thinks there’s “nothing inhumane” about detaining children in cages. You read that correctly. He even called the crisis at the border “over dramatization,” and concern for children being held in chain-linked cages “hoopla.”

Read more about Cramer’s heartless comments below:

Talking Points Memo: GOP Senate Nominee Cramer Compares Cages For Migrant Kids To Playgrounds

  • Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) pushed back hard on the idea that keeping border-crossing children in chain-link cages was inhumane, defending the practice in two local radio shows on Wednesday.
  • “By the way, chain link fences are around playgrounds all over America, all over North Dakota. And chain link fences allow line-of-sight visual connectivity with children and families,” he said as he discussed reversing President Trump’s policy to let families stay together at the border. “You know, there’s nothing inhumane about a chain link fence. If it is, then every ballpark in America is inhumane.”
  • Cramer doubled down on his comments when asked about them later in the day on WDAY, another local radio station, calling the focus on the cages “hoopla.”
  • Senate Republicans initially had opposed having Cramer, a close ally of Trump’s, as their candidate for Senate precisely because of his penchant for controversial comments. After failing to find a better alternative they circled back to him.
  • Cramer has since stirred up some controversies, including comments that Trump wasn’t campaigning as hard against Heitkamp as some other vulnerable Senate Democrats because “she’s a woman,” and sought and received an endorsementfrom a virulently anti-gay group that compares transgender people to pedophiles.

CNN: GOP Senate candidate Kevin Cramer: ‘Nothing inhumane about a chain-link fence’

  • North Dakota’s GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer volunteered support on Wednesday for chain-link fences in facilities where the government is detaining migrant children, comparing their use to playgrounds and ballparks.
  • Later on Wednesday, a caller on WDAY’s “The Rob (re)Port” asked Cramer about the comment and if he had heard audio of children crying after being separated from their parents.
  • “I think link fences is irrelevant to the crying of children,” Cramer responded. “My commentary is on the chain-link fence. There’s all this hoopla, because I think there are people on the left who clearly want the country to fail at this. And they would like the chain-link fence, they called it ‘dog cages.’ Well, chain-link fence has been used to, as I said, to protect children from predators on playgrounds, baseball diamonds, all kinds of sports courts and whatnot.”

Huffington Post: GOP Congressman Defends Cages For Migrant Kids: Playgrounds Have Chain-Link Fences

  • Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who is running for Senate, compared the cages migrant children have been kept in while in federal detention to playgrounds.
  • Cramer’s comments echoed those of Fox News host Laura Ingraham earlier this week, which caused outrage when she described the detention centers as “essentially summer camps.”