President Donald Trump shrugged off disturbing reports of border patrol guards lobbing tear gas at immigrants over the border, claiming without evidence that the deterrent is “very safe” and that the adults with kids are just pretending to be their parents.

“The tear gas is a very minor form of the tear gas itself. It’s very safe,” he said during a roundtable in Mississippi on Monday. “The ones that were suffering to a certain extent were the people that were putting it out there. But it’s very safe.”

“But you really say, why is a parent running up into an area where they know the tear gas is forming…and they’re running up with a child. In some cases they’re not the parents,” he continued. “These are people. They call them grabbers. They grab a child because they think they’re going to have a certain status by having a child. You have certain advantages in terms of our crazy laws that, frankly, Congress should be changing.”

When reporters pushed back on the claim, asking for evidence that the adults are “grabbers,” Trump was unable to offer any.

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