CNN’s Abby Phillip Roasts Trump in Late Night Clap-Back to Scott Jennings
CNN anchor Abby Phillip roasted President Donald Trump in a late-night exchange with GOP analyst Scott Jennings as Election Night coverage wound down after a Democratic sweep.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday in a case challenging Trump’s authority to impose sweeping tariffs based on the invocation of emergency powers.
The subject came up on Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s Election Night in America, as data guru Harry Enten went over some devastating polls on the subject.
When Phillip and Democratic analyst Kate Bedingfield warned that Trump is losing the public opinion fight, Jennings tried to dismiss the issue. Phillip had a sharp comeback:
ENTEN: Tariffs — not a winning issue for Donald Trump. We’ll see if it’s a winning issue for him at the Supreme Court. But I know which way Americans hope the Supreme Court rules, Abby.
PHLLIP: All right, Harry. Thank you very much.
My panel is back with me.
You know, Donald Trump once again being the two-by-four president where rather than just doing the thing in a moderate way, he just takes a two-by-four and just smacks everyone over the head with it.
And that’s kind of what’s happening with tariffs and putting aside — I mean the Supreme Court’s going to rule how they rule. But Americans have decided. They think this is bad for them.
And Trump is not backing down, frankly.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. And I mean, I think part of the issue is, you know, if you look at the approval that Harry was just talking about, sort of flipping from when Trump took office, I mean, part of the — I think part of the reality of that is Trump was, was not describing tariffs accurately, right?
Like it was always the companies are going to pay. It’s we’re going to make money off of this. And it was a hypothetical. People weren’t feeling it.
Well, fast forward. Now, people are feeling it. And so his inaccurate description of it doesn’t land.
It’s that mismatch that he — that’s the same problem he has on the economy writ large, which we’ve talked about, you know, which Biden had as well, that if you go out and tell people that, you know, the economy is humming and they’re not feeling it, it’s not going to land.
BEDINGFIELD: And so there’s a mismatch on how he’s talking about tariffs. And it’s dragging — it’s dragging him down.
PHILLIP: He also discounts the degree to which these days in this economy, everybody is a little bit of a mom-and-pop seller. People are on Etsy. People are — people are doing — they are engaging in commerce in ways that will make them be affected by tariffs.
And I don’t think Trump takes that into consideration either.
JENNINGS: Let me tell you something. All this polling, all this punditry, he does not care. I have talked to him about this this year —
PHILLIP: I’m aware.
(CROSSTALKING)
PHILLIP: I’m also aware that he does not understand how tariffs work.
Watch above via CNN’s Election Night in America.
