Wednesday on CNN’s “NewsNight,” network contributor Scott Jennings sparred with co-panelist Ana Navarro over President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
The discussion focused on Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his tattoo, indicating he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
Partial transcript as follows:
PHILLIP: 52% say, according to this new CNN poll, that — and when it comes to, undocumented immigrants who are being deported by Trump, Trump has gone too far, that’s 52%. Scott?
JENNINGS: Well, several things. Number one, the children that you mentioned were not deported. They went with their mothers. Their mothers requested that the children come with them. So, their mothers were deported because they were illegal aliens.
NAVARRO: They didn’t get due process. And so they went — so there’s really two choices here. Split the family or keep the family together. The U.S. government’s policy here was to let the mothers decide. The mothers decided to take the children. That’s number one.
On the Garcia case, effectively, what you all are arguing for passionately and what Democrats are passionately arguing for is for the president of the United States to re-import a dangerous member of a transnational terrorist organization who has clear affiliations with a gang that commits heinous atrocities, that is not what he was elected to do. And whether you bring him back here or not, I’m just going to explain to you the politics of this, through telling you what the speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, did today, which is that he told his members, please, for the love of God, stop going to El Salvador and dying on this hill.
The politics of this could not be worse for the left and worse for Democrats because the president knows he was elected to protect us from MS-13, and that is what they are doing.
REYES: The politics may be correct —
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: What do you say about the tattoos?
NAVARRO: I say that Trump said yesterday was an absolute lie.
JENNINGS: They’re not photoshopped.
NAVARRO: Are you saying the MS-13 that Donald Trump claims are legitimate tattoos on this guy are true? Are you saying the photoshop is true?
JENNINGS: Are you a tattoo truther? I mean, I don’t understand that.
NAVARRO: Wait, are you a photoshop denier?
REYES: You’re getting away from issue.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Yes, we are getting away from the issue, Scott. The picture of his knuckles does not say MS-13. It has —
JENNINGS: They’re symbols.
PHILLIP: Okay, yes. Let me just explain to people —
NAVARRO: That has not been proven either, Scott. None of the things he said —
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me just explain to people what we’re talking about here. There are symbols on his knuckles. None of them say MS-13. However, this administration has decided that they symbolize something related to MS-13, which is disputed by a lot of people.
JENNINGS: It’s not disputed.
PHILLIP: I am going to move on. I’m going to move on, because this is not a conversation about the tattoos.
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