Gabriel Sherman writes:

White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller has all but become the face of the issue, a development that even supporters of Trump’s “zero-tolerance” position say is damaging the White House. “Stephen actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border,” an outside White House adviser said. “He’s a twisted guy, the way he was raised and picked on. There’s always been a way he’s gone about this. He’s Waffen-SS.”

Making matters worse, Trump doesn’t seem to have an end game for the inhumane policy that is opposed by two-thirds of Americans. The executive order that Trump signed on Wednesday is internally inconsistent and is almost certain to be challenged in court. (A 1997 consent decree prohibits the government from detaining undocumented children for more than 20 days, even if they are housed with their parents.) He’s continued to blame Democrats for allowing immigrants to “infest” the country; while in a closed-door meeting Tuesday night with congressional Republicans, he called on them to end family separation and “fix” the immigration system. He’s effectively boxed himself into a corner. “He doesn’t like this policy, and he knows it’s not helping him,” a Republican who’s spoken with him said. “But he can’t get within him that this is a problem, and he needs to take ownership of it.”