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During a heated televised debate Tuesday evening, a T-Mobile adviser and disgraced former Trump campaign employee derided a 10-year-old child with Down Syndrome while defending the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border.
The T-Mobile adviser, Corey Lewandowski, appeared on Fox News to show support for the “zero-tolerance” policy announced in April, which has so far resulted in the U.S. government seizing more 2,300 children from their parents, many of whom are said to have entered the country seeking asylum.
“I read today about a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was taken from her mother and put in a cage…” Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas said on Fox News.
Petkanas was then interrupted by Lewandowski, who replied,“Womp, womp,” a game-show noise that means failure, loss, or loser.
BuzzFeed reports that a 10-year-old girl was detained and separated from her mother by U.S. immigration officials last week and placed in a detention facility in McAllen, Texas, despite her father being a legal U.S. resident.
According to Politico, T-Mobile last month hired the lobbying firm Turnberry Solutions, which reportedly employs Lewandowski, to help the wireless provider win approval for its proposed merger with Sprint. The Wall Street Journal confirmed Lewandowski’s work with T-Mobile and reported that it reviewed documents that show he “receives a cut of the fees paid to the lobbying firm on the T-Mobile contract.” Prior to his work with Turnberry, Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, was accused of sexual assault by singer Joy Villa.
“Corey Lewandowski is now affiliated with that firm and they have offered perspective to T-Mobile on a variety of topics, including the pending transaction,” T-Mobile said in a statement provided to the media.
Early last month, Lewandowski joined Vice President Mike Pence’s political action committee, Great America PAC, which, incidentally, received $5,000 in April from the GEO Group, a company that reportedly operates a 1,500-bed ICE detention facility in Aurora, Colorado.
T-Mobile did not yet respond to a request for comment. Lewandowski could not be reached.