Corey Lewandowski refused to apologize for his shocking “womp, womp” sneer at a migrant child with Down syndrome who was separated from her family – but it wasn't for lack of host Sandra Smith's efforts to help him spin it.

In a video Fox News euphemistically called, “Corey Lewandowski addresses comment on family separations,” Lewandowski returned to Fox News after he cruelly mocked concerns for a 10 year-old migrant with Down syndrome who had been removed from her family at the border. Lewandowski was deservedly torched for his heartless “womp, womp” response.

So, as predictably as the sun rises in the east, Lewandowski returned to Fox News for some Republican Rehab. Lewandowski, the thuggish former manager of the Donald Trump campaign now works for Mike Pence’s PAC.

Smith, who said nothing to challenge Lewandowski’s original remark when she hosted him last night, was now a willing Republican-Rehab Ringmaster for the Reconstruction.

Lewandowski began by doubling down on his viciousness, despite Smith’s chummy invitation to walk his remarks back:

SMITH: Corey, dealing with children is a very sensitive and obviously very highly charged subject. You made a comment last night that’s gotten a lot of attention in the media. Would you like to address that right now? 

LEWANDOWSKI: Well, I’d love to address it, because my comment was specifically about Zac [Petkanas, a Democratic guest] trying to politicize the use of children as a political football in this discussion, because the law is very clear. When parents commit crimes by coming into this country, regardless of who their children are, they are separated because we are a nation of laws. That has never changed. This is a policy that is implemented under the Obama administration, and Congress can change this. But they’ve chosen not to do that. 

And so it doesn’t matter to me if you come with one child or ten children. Nobody wants to see their parents separated from their children. But the parents understand that by coming to this country illegally, they’re committing a crime and there are consequences, just as there would be in any other country in the world. So let’s not make this about politicizing children. Let’s make it about the rules and the laws, and Congress has the ability to change that. 

Smith made no challenge to Lewandowski’s dishonest and cowardly attempt to blame the Obama administration. Instead, she offered up the rehab spin on Lewandowksi’s behalf – and Lewandowski still refused to apologize. Twice:

SMITH: But, to be clear, you were not speaking about the young girl with Down syndrome that was separated from her parents at the border?

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, I don’t know the young girl that Zac referenced. I was mocking Zac, a liberal, Democrat [sic] National Committee activist who is doing nothing but politicizing the issue of making an example of one particular child.

But Lewandowski was happy to politicize the issue by changing the subject to Kate Steinle and other victims of immigrant crime that Fox and their right-wing BFFs love to cherry pick in an effort to falsely demonize immigrants.

To her credit, Smith did say, “The bottom line is that there are children caught up in this” and she “asked” whether Lewandowski’s pal Trump might “feel like he’s losing this battle.”

But still Lewandowski doubled down. “No one wants to see” children separated from their parents, he reiterated, “But the parents have an opportunity to not have that happen by not committing a crime.”

SMITH: There are some who saw your words last night as overlooking an individual when there are so many affected by this. Do you feel that you owe an apology of any sort?

LEWANDOWSKI: An apology? I owe an apology to the children whose parents are putting them in a position that is forcing them to be separated.

Then, instead of apologizing for his own mean-spiritedness, he brought up Steinle, et al. again and said “the American people” owe their families an apology.

Watch Lewandowski fail to show even a smidgen of decency below, from the June 20, 2018 America’s Newsroom. (Some transcript excerpts via Media Matters)