CNN’s Abby Phillip Brawls With Erick Erickson After He Calls Her Show ‘An Embarrassment’: ‘Sorry You’re Unwilling to Come On’

Isaac SchorrDec 4th, 2024, 12:09 pm
 

1 CNN's Abby Phillip and Black Panelists Clash With Scott Jennings Over 'Anti-Woke' Push — 'Sounds Like Anti-Black'

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson and CNN’s Abby Phillip brawled over the quality of the latter’s show, NewsNight with Abby Phillip on Wednesday after Erickson deplored it as “discrediting” to CNN and “an embarrassment.”

Erickson kicked off the argument like this:

The tag line for NewsNight on CNN is, “Abby Phillip delivers a smart, sharp approach to the day’s biggest stories.” I have been invited to be on the show several times and have had scheduling conflicts that made it impossible for me to travel for the show. I’m glad. This morning, I told my assistant to politely decline all further invites.

The show is an embarrassment and @CNN should be embarrassed to air it.

“It is clearly not designed to take a ‘sharp’ or ‘smart’ approach to any news story. Instead, it is designed to generate viral clips to boost ratings, even if from people hate watching. I continue to be baffled by the clip of those around the table ignorant of ‘the Ferguson effect,’ that seems to suggest police gave up enforcing laws in inner-cities after the Ferguson riots. Abby Phillip herself wrote about it at the Washington Post and acted as if she were hearing Aramaic spoken when Ryan Girdusky brought it up,” he argued before taking issue with a segment from Tuesday night:

Last night, the round table again piled on Scott Jennings because the panelists claimed Donald Trump wanted to use the American military to round up American citizens. Trump has not said that. His comments have been about illegal aliens. But even, again Abby Phillip who regularly likes to correct conservative panelists, including Scott Jennings, seemed absolutely confused about basic facts that never penetrate the leftwing echo chamber. In fact, Abby Phillip again tried to correct Scott Jennings and, again, was wrong. She went back to Trump’s consideration of calling out the National Guard after the 2020 riots, but that was something Tom Cotton advocated for in the New York Times that Trump did not actually do. She then had the audacity to claim credentialism for the progressive panelist who claimed Donald Trump wanted to send the military after American citizens, something he has not said. They, after all, were lawyers.

“I’m sorry, but the show is a sign of CNN’s drift into the fever swamps of MSNBC. I want no part of it and the show’s existence makes me question the direction of the whole network as it struggles to find its footing,” concluded Erickson. “NewsNight is discrediting to the whole network. I have made the editorial decision on my own radio show to stop airing clips of the program because I do not want to give it any attention. I think the show is a cry for help from CNN and, if they think this show is a good idea, they need no help. They need to be rebuilt. Paging John Malone.”

Phillip didn’t take the critique lying down.

“@EWErickson I take it you did not actually watch the show last night and there’s a lot to address in this mostly incorrect tweet,” she replied. “But I’ll start with the most simple one: the discussion last night was, in part, about whether Trump has threatened to used the military to address domestic problems (yes, involving US citizens). The answer is very clearly yes: He’s [sic] a Trump quote from 2020 about the racial justice protests. ‘If a city or state refuses to take the actions necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.'”

“You can argue that he didn’t do it, not that he didn’t threaten to do it. Take a deep breath. Calm down. The thing about @ScottJenningsKY is that he’s willing to engage in conversation and debate. I’m sorry that we can’t say the same for you. Have a great day,” added Phillip.

But Erickson remained unmoved.

“The problem here, Abby, is that you like to chime in and correct conservatives who often are not wrong in what they’ve said, but you do it less often with progressives. See, e.g., the Ferguson effect, which you seemed baffled by, but had written about. As, again, last night, you and your leftwing panelists wanted to stake out a position on Trump today about the use of military that was unrelated to anything from 2020 and willfully mischaracterized the present controversy. Also, your use of the quote below is a distraction from Trump’s actions, which involved explicitly not using the military,” he shot back before doubling down:

It’s not a matter of my willingness or not to engage in debate. It’s that Scott Jennings is on the payroll and enjoys it and, as you and CNN are scrambling to make David Zazlav happy, you’ve decided to bring elements of MSNBC into a network that used to pride itself on objectivity so you can have a panel of progressives where you have, repeatedly, used the credentials of the leftwing panelists to try to correct conservatives.

I know you have to defend your show and job, and it is easy to defend by saying, “Sorry, you just can’t debate like Scott,” but your show is not good. It is not smart or sharp. It is preening and often deeply ignorant. And at least you won’t have to waste your producer’s time by continuing to try to get me on your show, which you’ve tried to do repeatedly.

“Again: Sorry you’re unwilling to come on. Still not sure why, if you’re so confident in your views,” replied Phillip. “But nonetheless. Last thing I’ll say on this: The claim that was made on the show about the ferguson effect was that it was responsible for 15,000 excess Black male deaths in 2020 (not whether the ferguson effect exists). I invite you to substantiate that claim. I’ll wait…”

NewsNight has developed a reputation as one of the most heated shows on cable news in recent days, with Phillip acting as the moderator of many an explosive segment.

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