CNN Democratic commentator Karen Finney called GOP analyst Scott Jennings “incredibly dishonest” over his defense of President Donald Trump in the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
News broke Monday night that Victor Martinez-Hernandez — who entered the U.S. unlawfully from El Salvador — was found guilty of rape, kidnapping, and the first-degree murder of Maryland mother Rachel Morin. The Trump administration has seized on the case as a counterpoint to the wrongful deportation of Garcia, whom Trump labeled a “terrorist” on national television without providing evidence.
On Monday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Jennings also adopted the premise, which Finney immediately rebuked:
PHILLIP: It was very striking — yes, they have not. They’ve said, as you pointed out, that it was a mistake. It was striking to me to see Marco Rubio in the Oval Office today defending all of this because this is a flashback from when he had written a book about his family and there was a biography written about him. Rubio’s grandfather was ordered deported when he came to this country and ultimately actually was not deported. He was in the country illegally, was not deported and was retroactively given some form of asylum, which all that is to say he took advantage of a process that existed for him, just like many of these immigrants do.Maybe they are in the country illegally, but they go to a judge and they make their case. And that&
#8217;s a process. It was a process that was –(CROSSTALKS)PHILLIP: It was a process that worked for him. And he’s sitting there in the Oval Office now saying that process should not be available to everybody else.JENNINGS: Well, two issues.MICHAELSON: You’re saying the opposite of what the administration’s saying. They admitted it was a mistake. You’re saying it wasn’t a mistake. So, was it a mistake?JENNINGS: Two issues, on the secretary of state making a comment, the reason the administration believes they got a big win at the Supreme Court is because the district court was trying to compel the executive on foreign affairs. The Supreme Court threw that out. That’s not what the Supreme Court has ruled. And what Marco Rubio is saying is true. The courts have long recognized that they cannot compel the executive on foreign policy matters. That’s number one.Number two, what they also believe is that, politically, the American people want them to be as aggressive as possible and pull all the levers they can pull to solve a crisis that has festered for years and, you know, that we keep calling this guy Maryland man in the press. Nobody seems to worry about the Maryland mother, Rachel Morin, who was murdered by someone that the previous administration let out of jail.FINNEY: But not by this man, Scott. That is very dishonest!JENNINGS:So, this is a visceral political issue.FINNEY: It’s incredibly dishonest to conflate these two people! Not the same person.REYES: All administrations, both parties, have paroled people into the country. And I think we did step away from –JENNINGS: Why would we do that?REYES: All administrations have done that –JENNINGS: What is the compelling reason to put this person back in the country?REYES: I think we did get off the topic.PHILLIP: Let me let Raul finish.REYES: I think we did get off the topic, though, of President Trump floating the idea again, as he has on multiple occasions, of sending American citizens, American prisoners to El Salvador. And just for the record, you know, we have the Eighth Amendment, we have due process rights, we have statutes on the books now that forbid sending people to foreign countries, let alone to a place associated with incredibly brutal conditions and terrorism. And he’s floating this idea and bringing it into the mainstream.
Watch above via CNN NewsNight.