CNN Panel Descends Into Shouting Match When Scott Jennings Refuses to Let Leftist Compare ICE to Nazis
“CNN NewsNight” host Abby Phillip intervened Thursday after former New York Times columnist Charles Blow was called out by Federalist writer Brianna Lyman and CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings for comparing United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Nazis.
Riots against ICE operations in Minneapolis erupted after the Department of Homeland Security confirmed in a Wednesday post on X that an ICE agent shot an illegal immigrant from Venezuela after being ambushed during a “targeted” operation. Lyman fired back at Blow after he claimed ICE used “white supremacist propaganda” to recruit agents.
“They’re asking ICE to do outrageous things. They are recruiting them using Nazi, white supremacist propaganda, hinting to that and then people see that. People who don’t recognize it as Nazi or white supremacists, maybe they just join anyway, but the ones who do recognize it see that as a hint. The same kind of hint as, you know, ‘Stand back and stand by,’” Blow claimed. “And then you put those people in the field, not — this is not people coming to Washington to protest. These are people being placed in my neighborhood doing horrible things to my neighbors. And when people respond to that, they say, now the problem we created, we will solve with more force. This is a horrible political play.”
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota compared ICE to the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s secret police, during a May 17 commencement address for the University of Minnesota law school, accusing President Donald Trump of denying those deported “due process.”
“First of all, how dare you sit here and accuse ICE agents of being Nazi, Gestapo, and white supremacists when they are –” Lyman said before Blow interrupted with, “Is that what I said? Is that what I said?”
“You just insinuated that they’re apparently recruiting others — you said they’re recruiting others, and then it’s a dog whistle for others to then apply to that,” Lyman responded.
Phillip then interrupted Lyman, claiming that several Cabinet agencies were using phrases and statements that allegedly originated from “white supremacist chatrooms.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s equivalent of, like, Hitler drank water, so if you drink water, you’re Hitler,” Lyman responded, before Blow began badgering her about a post involving an image of George Washington that he claimed used “Nazi phrasing.”
The two then engaged in a heated back-and-forth before Jennings got involved.
“What was Nazi phrasing?” Lyman asked, with Blow claiming in response, “You didn’t see it. You said you’ve seen it, but you didn’t see it.”
“What is the phrase? What is the phrase? No one knows the phrase,” Jennings replied before Phillip cut him off, claiming, “Everybody stop talking. Just a second. I don’t want to go down this cul-de-sac. All I was saying, just in response to your question, is that he wasn’t saying ICE agents are Nazis or whatever it is. He was saying that some of the iconography that has been used and some of the phrases that have been used by DHS on social media, people have linked back to very specific places where white supremacist ideology is utilized.”
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