MSNBC’s Joy Reid Likens Trump’s Border Fence to Berlin Wall

On Saturday’s “Melissa Harris-Perry” on MSNBC, guest host Joy Reid remembered the construction of the Berlin Wall, “one of the world’s most infamous symbols of oppression and division,” by comparing it to proposed fencing along the US-Mexico border.

Reid first explained how the Berlin Wall was constructed overnight without much warning, and even though friends and family were separated, soldiers were ordered to shoot anyone who tried to cross.

“In effort to stop the exodus, late one August night, East Germany began constructing a barrier, first with miles of barbed wire, but within days that was replaced with concrete walls. With little warning, Berliners found themselves cut off from friend, family, and work. The barrier continued to grow, eventually comprised of a series of concrete walls, standing up to 15 feet high, heavily fortified and stretching more than 100 miles. soldiers stationed along the wall were under orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. And yet, some East Germans risked their lives to continue trying to cross the border.”

Connecting the Berlin Wall to the wall that GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump would like built along the United States-Mexico border, Reid said that “walls, as a means of separating and isolating people, countries, and cultures are still a thing, including in the United States, as evidenced by Donald Trump’s plan for the US-Mexico border.

Reid concluded, “History has taught us building a wall, whether to keep people out, or to lock them in, can have far reaching, and sometimes devastating consequences, just like that wall bisecting Berlin, which the government of East Germany began building on this day, August 15, 1961.”