Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen appeared, for the first time today, before a Congressional panel to talk about the administration’s child separation policy. One of the key moments came as she tried to play a game of semantics with the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee Bennie Thompson (D-MS). He asked, “Are we still putting children in cages?” Her answer “To my knowledge, CBP never purposely put a child in a cage.” (Watch the exchange above)

Nielsen also raised eyebrows when she said she didn’t know separating children from their parents would cause trauma.

CBS also notes:

In one tense exchange, Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán of California blasted the secretary for her leading role in the discontinued policy, which led to the separation of more than 2,600 migrant children from their parents. “You said you waited to give direction on how to implement the zero tolerance policy, because you wanted to do it with compassion,” she told Nielsen. “Do you know how outrageous that sounds?”

“You have no feeling, no compassion, no empathy here,” Barragán later added.

Nielsen came to the president’s defense several times during the hearing and as the Los Angeles Times points out that included going along with his lies.

Nielsen defended Trump’s recent misstatement that there were “never so many apprehensions ever in history” at the U.S.-Mexico. border. Apprehensions in the mid-2000s routinely reached more than 1 million migrants a year. In the fiscal year that ended in September, 521,090 people were apprehended or stopped at the border. She said the nation is on track this year for a total of 900,000 apprehensions at the border.

Nevertheless Nielsen refused to contradict the president, saying that in “some categories, we have had record-breaking apprehensions,” such as in the category of families.