WATCH: Ken Cuccinelli and CNN’s Brianna Keilar Battle in Absurd 20-Minute Debate On Immigration, Covid, and Confederate Flags
Brianna Keilar and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli spent over 20 minutes interrupting, debating, and laughing at each other’s responses during an absurd battle on CNN Tuesday afternoon.
The two began discussing ICE’s decision to limit Visas to students only taking in-person classes, not virtual ones. Keilar started by asking Cuccinelli why he is on board with the Trump administration’s decision to force international students to return home.
“If they don’t reopen this semester, there isn’t a reason for a person holding a student Visa to be present in the country,” Cuccinelli said. “They should go home.”
“So, there isn’t a reason, you say, for them to be in the country?” Keilar said back. “So $41 billion in revenue created by them, that’s not a reason?”
The two began talking over each other until Keilar tried to fact-check Cuccinelli’s statistics about the amount of students who would be affected.
“OK, one million international students,” Keilar said. “But you know that’s not true.”
“Brianna, I don’t know where you’re going,” Cuccinelli responded. “You know it’s not true that a million of them are going to go online. Yes, yes, yes.”
After their first disagreement, Keilar moved onto the United States’ coronavirus response, specifically its death rate. They argued about President Donald Trump’s tweets about Covid-19 and Cuccinelli called them “expressions of opinions” before laughing at Keilar’s rebuttal.
Cuccinelli touted the US’s mortality rate compared to other countries in the world before Keilar’s crew put up a graphic on the screen to try and contradict him.
“And we’re now testing at more than 50 percent of the rate than any other country in the world,” Cuccinelli said.
“But these are death rates,” Keilar said over Cuccinelli who was still talking. “This isn’t testing. It’s not positive rates, it’s death rates.”
As Cuccinelli continued to defend Trump’s response, Keilar again switched gears to Trump attacking NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace by calling the noose incident a “hoax.” Cuccinelli argued that Trump and his administration have taken a “neutral” stance on the removal of confederate flags and that it shouldn’t be the federal government’s job to decide.
“How you can say that the president taking a neutral position?” Keilar asked. “Opposing NASCAR’s decision to ban the confederate flag, which he did, is not a neutral position. That just doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, what I can tell you is whatever your interpretation, the White House came out and explicitly addressed whether he was weighing in to push them one way or the other,” Cuccinelli responded. “The answer was no, that he was neutral on that.”
CNN then aired a 2015 clip of Trump saying he would take down confederate flags. When Keilar analyzed the clip, Cuccinelli told Keilar that she “heard what you wanted hear.”
“I heard words that I’m following!” Keilar shot back.
Watch above, via CNN.
