On her 12 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Tuesday, anchor Andrea Mitchell teed up former Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman to denounce President Trump for reinstating the Mexico City policy banning U.S. foreign aide from funding abortions. In addition, Mitchell agreed with a stunning accusation hurled by the Obama administration official.

Mitchell fretted that the pro-life policy was being “expanded...beyond what George W. Bush and previous Republican administrations have done, and to basically say that these international agencies cannot use their own funding for such work.” Sherman replied: “Indeed....this reinstatement of the global gag rule, which was created in Mexico City in 1984, says that you cannot provide counseling, you cannot provide information, you cannot send someone to another provider, and you have to literally sign a pledge that you won't or you get no U.S. funding.”

She then ranted: “21 million women get unsafe abortions, the W.H.O. says, the World Health Organization. 13% of maternal deaths, the W.H.O. says, comes from unsafe abortions. By putting this global gag rule back into effect, we are sending many women around the world to an early death.”

Rather than try to rein in such an outlandish statement from her guest, Mitchell voiced her agreement instead: “And expanding it, in fact.” She never acknowledged the millions of “early deaths” of unborn children caused by abortion.

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Later in the show, Mitchell invited on Democratic New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen to tout “a bipartisan move now in the Senate from senators challenging that new executive order on the so-called gag rule.” (Maine Senator Susan Collins was the only Republican to join the effort).

Shaheen proclaimed:

And you know, what's so frustrating about this is if you want to prevent abortions, if you want to support the health of the mother and child, you give them access to family planning services. And we know that, that's what the data shows. We've seen it in country after country, we've seen it here in the United States, where levels of unplanned pregnancies have fallen to the lowest rate in decades. And so, it's so short-sighted, what President Trump has done.

Here are excerpts of the two January 24 exchanges: