‘Facts Don’t Lie!’ CNN’s Daniel Dale Regales Anchor With Takedown Of Trump/GOP Immigration Claims

CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale regaled a clearly amused Abby Phillip with a thorough debunking of claims from former President Donald Trump and other Republicans about the bipartisan border bill they’re trying to sink.

Trump and his adherents are waging a likely-to-succeed campaign against the bipartisan Senate immigration bill that includes massive concessions to conservatives and little in the way of Democratic priorities, and which has been endorsed by border patrol and CBP organizations.

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Dale took on some of the arguments being used to sink the bill and found them lacking, finishing with a whopper of a Trump lie about endorsing one of the key senators behind the bill:

ABBY PHILLIP: Tonight, that sound that you hear is a deal meant to corral the crisis at the border dying on the vine. Republican leadership tells CNN that they don’t expect a vote on Wednesday on that long-negotiated national security package. It’s a package that Republicans said they wanted so much so that they held up aid for other national security priorities like Ukraine, like Israel, but they didn’t want it, or at least they didn’t, until Donald Trump said he didn’t.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: It’s a trap for Republicans that would be so stupid, so foolish to sign a bill like this. And it’s not only that, it’s massive amounts of money going out of town, as we say, going out of town, billions and billions and billions of dollars, one of the dumbest bills I’ve ever seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Now, the math, right, is now obvious, and so are the politics. The lead Republican negotiator on this one is James Lankford of Oklahoma. He is a no doubt ruby red conservative. But daring to do something that the former president just doesn’t like is a surefire way to wind up on the business end of a Trump insult.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This bill is impossible to believe that somebody actually negotiated. And he’s a very nice guy. James is a very nice guy. But this is not a good thing for him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Let’s start with CNN’s Daniel Dale, who has a fact check, much needed, for us about what’s in this bill. Let’s start, Daniel, with the claims that this is an amnesty bill. What’s the truth here?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: Yes. You’re seeing this all over social media from a variety of right wing lawmakers and from right wing commentators, like Donald Trump Jr., it just is not true, Abby. This is maybe less a fact check than a plea for words to have meaning. There is no amnesty in this bill. It does not provide legal status to any people — with any undocumented people or people living illegally in this country now.

You don’t take it from me. You can take it from policy experts, like Aaron Reichin-Melnick, who tweeted, there’s not one single line of amnesty in here. You can even take it from a Fox News reporter whose tweet you see there. He covers immigration, very critical of President Biden. He says there is no amnesty or legalization in the bill.

Now, I’m sure there will be pushback to some on the right, it seems, any immigration bill that provides any permission for anyone to do anything is an amnesty bill, but, again, I think word should have meaning this is not amnesty legislation.

PHILLIP: Yes, words absolutely should have meaning, and for some, it doesn’t.

Look, some Republicans have also argued that there doesn’t even need to be a border bill, because the president already has all the power that he needs to close the border entirely. What are the facts on that one?

DALE: See, on this one, Abby, I don’t think we should issue a firm, you know, true or false verdict because it’s the Supreme Court, which can be unpredictable, that would render the judgment on whether a hypothetical border closure under current law was lawful or not. But there is great reason, I think, for skepticism.

And there’s context that former President Trump and Speaker Johnson and others are not mentioning when they claim that President Biden already has the power to close the border. And it’s this. President Trump himself essentially tried it under current law in 2018. In 2018, President Trump tried to execute an asylum ban, essentially ban asylum for anyone entering the country over the Mexican border between ports of entry.

And here’s the key thing. It was quickly blocked by federal courts. The Ninth Circuit quickly blocked it, and the Supreme Court declined to reverse the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 not to lift the block.

Now, of course, we do have a different court today. It’s a 6-3 conservative court rather than a 5-4 court. Again, anything could happen if a hypothetical closure got there. But again, the claim that President Biden could just do this now is, at very best, unproven.

PHILLIP: Yes. Donald Trump is also attacking the key Republican negotiator, Senator James Lankford. We played a little bit of that earlier. He’s making a claim about an endorsement specifically.

What is happening here?

DALE: Yes, so this was an interview former President Trump did today with right wing commentator Dan Bongino. Listen to the exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Trump endorsed Senator Lankford. Yes, you know what, I get asked for endorsements all the time and people let you down.

TRUMP: Just to correct the record, I did not endorse Senator Langford. I didn’t do it. He ran and I did not endorse him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DALE: So, this is a classic genre, Abby, of Donald Trump lie. You know, someone he’s affiliated with, associated with, has hung out with, gets in some sort of trouble or is taking political heat. All of a sudden, I don’t know him, never met him, barely spoke to him, barely had any contact, in this case, didn’t endorse him.

As you can see right there on the screen, Donald Trump endorsed Senator James Lankford. This was September 2022, during the general election in the midterms. He issued what he calls a complete and total endorsement. And here’s the key. He not only endorsed him, but said he is strong on the border in that very endorsement statement.

PHILLIP: Well, facts don’t lie! Daniel Dale, thank you, I appreciate it.

DALE: Thank you.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.