On CNN'sState of the Union, Rick Santorum claimed that although the government does not know exactly where the 1,500 children the government lost track of are, that doesn't technically mean that they are missing. GOP logic at its finest.
Santorum said the children "were placed in vetted homes." He added, "The question is, they haven't had communication with these previously vetted sponsors. Does that mean that they’re lost? No." He continued to say, "That means there's a process going on right now to try and find why these sponsors haven’t checked back in to give us their location."
Last month, Department of Health and Human Services officials reported to Congress that roughly 1,500 unaccompanied migrant children who had previously been placed with adult sponsors had been lost track of by the department. According to Santorum, each of these sponsors were never going to check in about the children and their location anyway. He said, "I think the idea that they're 'lost' is hyperbole to try and create an issue where I don't really think there is one, other than the fact that the bureaucracy—surprise, surprise—doesn't work very well."
A visibly rattled Patti Solis Doyle, who was Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, called out Santorum's flawed logic during the panel discussion. She said, "If you don’t think 1,500 children being lost is not an issue, then there's something definitely wrong." She then added what we all were thinking: "The government has said that they've lost track of them. That's another word for lost."
Santorum defended himself by saying there's "logical explanations" to the situation. Besides, Santorum assured, "We lose people all the time in a lot of other government programs."
