CNN Panel Battle Pro-Trump Pundit Claiming $1.8 Billion ‘Slush Fund’ Is Actually ‘Something Very Altruistic’

CNN’s Table for Five panelists battled with Pro-Trump pundit Emily Austin Saturday for claiming that the president’s $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded “Anti-Weaponization Fund” was actually “something very altruistic.”

“The truth is, we don’t know where this money is going yet. And I feel like we’re always prematurely just very negative when it comes to anything that President Trump wants to do,” Austin said.

“But I actually, I view this as something very altruistic. Trump did not take the money and put it in his pocket like he could have, and like most people probably would have done. And instead, he wants to help those people who were absolutely destroyed by the weaponization of the government. I have friends who declared bankruptcy over proving their innocence, that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, some millions, to avoid spending time in jail. And they don’t get that money back. Why can’t we help those people?” Austin asked.

“Well, there lies the root of the problem,” said Democratic pundit Isaiah Martin. “You just said the very simple fact that we’re not going to know exactly who gets this money…So I think that it’s absolutely absurd that there’s going to be a fund that’s $1.8 billion, we don’t know where the money is going to go through, and honestly, we don’t know if we’ll ever know who the money is going to go to. You don’t think that that’s absurd, that the president of the united States can create a fund and divvy payments to people, and we don’t know who the money goes to?”

“People in this country who have been wronged by the law already have legal pathways to seek justice for that,” said journalist Josh Rogin. “And you know…what you said, ‘Trump could have just taken the money.’ No, he can’t just take the money because we live in a —”

Host Jessica Dean interrupted, “I want to ask this question because, Emily, you were saying Trump didn’t benefit. What about this piece, this other—”

“That he settled with himself!” said Martin, with Rogin adding, “That he negotiated with himself!”

“I want to ask about the IRS not being able to prosecute him or his family over taxes forever,” Dean continued. “What do you think about that?”

“Obviously, optically, it looks horrendous,” Austin said, while Martin interjected, “‘Cause it is horrendous!”

“I admit that,” Austin said, “but there’s also an unprecedented amount of persecution when it comes to the trump and the trump family. There has never been a president that has been persecuted as much as Donald Trump.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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