‘A Whole New Low’: Abby Phillip Nearly Speechless As Scott Jennings ‘Makes a Fool of Himself’ While Defending Trump ‘Soft Launching’ Deporting Americans to El Salvador Prisons
CNN “NewsNight” anchor Abby Phillip and Trump-friendly commentator Scott Jennings spar regularly over controversial topics, but on Monday, after the former Republican operative tried in vain to defend the president’s wishcasting about sending American prisoners to El Salvador, Phillip’s visible shock perhaps said it best.
Phillip’s side eye captured nearly as much attention as Jennings’ defense of a seemingly indefensible position. Her look seemed to express what one X user later wrote about Jennings’ argument: “A whole new low, even by his standards.”
Here’s Donald Trump’s quote that got it started.
“Well, I’d love that,” Trump said in response to the president of El Salvador’s offer to onboard American prisoners into the Central American country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. El Salvador is already taking in Venezuelan detainees from the U.S.
“If we could take some of our 20-time wise guys that push people into subways and hit people over the back of the head and then purposely run people over in cars, if he would take them, I would be honored to give them,” the president continued. “I don’t know what the law says on that but I can’t imagine the law would say anything different. If they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us, I’m all for it but I would only do according to the law.”
Trump’s push to outsource the punishment of migrants to other countries has proven increasingly controversial as it’s been discovered that not all those being deported are gang members or criminals, as claimed by the president. In fact, some are here legally. Very few are receiving due process.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, voted to allow Trump to continue using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which had been used on three previous wartime occasions — 1812, World War I and World War II — to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members.
In court filings the administration acknowledged that “many” of the people sent to El Salvador did not have criminal records, and attorneys and family members say their clients and relatives are not in any way associated with Tren de Aragua, the violent Venezuelan gang cited by Trump as an imminent threat to national security.
The ruling lifted a judge’s order that temporarily blocked the president’s use of the centuries-old legislation to swiftly deport people from the U.S. before legal challenges can be mounted.
The court’s ruling did not address the issue of the constitutionality of the administration’s use of the 1798 law, but instead found that the plaintiffs had sued in the wrong venue by going to federal court in Washington, D.C. The conservative majority ruled that the proper federal district for the case is Texas, where detainees rounded up from around the nation are being held before their deportations to the Central American nation.
But the justices did add the immigrants are “entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal” in front of a judge. Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett, whose recent dissents from the president have led some MAGA figures to call for her removal from the court, once again sided against the conservatives.
The notion that native-born criminals could be sent to foreign prisons or detention centers is fairly antithetical to American norms and traditions, Phillip said.
As she turned to her panel for discussion, Jennings blurted out, “What’s wrong with that?”
Phillip tried to explain.
PHILLIP: Hey, hey, I wonder who gets to determine what the law is because this administration seems to think the courts don’t – like he does.
JENNINGS: Well, it sounds like if somebody got convicted of a violent crime that he just described —
JENNINGS: –could be sent to prison.
PHILLIP: So, you’re saying what’s — what’s wrong with sending Americans to a prison in El Salvador?
JENNINGS: I’m saying what’s wrong with sending people who are convicted of violent crimes to prison, period?
PHILLIP: No, no. That’s what he said. He said he’s going to send them to a prison.
JENNINGS: Yeah. So?
PHILLIP: The vice president called it a gulag in El Salvador. Is that OK with you?
JENNINGS: If you — if you are convicted of a violent crime in this country and a court finds you guilty of whatever, those things he just listed, and it’s — and it’s OK by the law, which he said at the end of his answer, I mean —
PHILLIP: How is it OK by the law to extradite Americans to a foreign country for crimes they committed here?
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, I think what he’s saying is it’s OK I mean, I think what he’s saying is if it’s OK by the law to put someone in prison, then they’re going to do it. But —
…
As Phillip’s looked at Jennings who struggled to articulate his point in astonishment, closed by reiterating that “the idea that you can just take an American, even if they’re in jail, and just send them to a foreign country and say ‘bye bye’ is not a thing that has happened in this country.”
Jennings’ take did not go over well on social media.
“The GOP just soft-launched deporting American citizens — because nothing says ‘law and order’ like outsourcing your prison system to El Salvador,” opined one viewer on X.
“Jennings just goes on CNN every night to make a fool of himself,” added another. “Consistently good at it as well.”
White Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt seamed to double down on Trump’s comments during a press briefing early Tuesday.
“These would be heinous, violent criminals who have broken our nation’s laws repeatedly.”