‘Hold on! No!’ CNN Anchor Shuts Down Trump Fan Claiming Dems Had No Right to Walk Into ICE Facility

CNN anchor Abby Phillip shut down longtime Trump supporter Joe Borelli when he claimed Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) and other Democratic lawmakers didn’t have the right to show up and enter an ICE detention center.

Rep. McIver was present for the May 9 arrest of Mayor Ras Baraka (D-Newark), as well as Reps. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) as they performed an oversight visit at the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark. Charges against Mayor Baraka were dropped, but Acting U.S. Attorney and longtime Trump confidant Alina Habba announced charges against Rep. McIver.

The arrest was caught on camera, and the video conflicts with the descriptions offered by Habba and DHS officials.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip discussed the purported “body slam” video with a panel that included Scott Jennings, Cornel West, Julie Roginsky, and Borelli.

The anchor interrupted Borelli when he said McIver “doesn’t have an inherent right just to walk into” the facility and attempted to compare it with Republicans who tried to visit Jan. 6 prisoners:

JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: With all due respect, you look like that meme of Charlie Day from Always Sunny in Philadelphia with all the strings and wires trying to connect the dot. You had a member of Congress, who, by the way, doesn’t have an inherent right just to walk into a federal de–.

ROGINSKY: Oh, yes, she does.

BORELLI: Oh, no, you don’t. January, 2021, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz tried the same stunt, same stunt, it was a stunt, no offense, Mayor Baraka, it was a stunt. They don’t have an inherent right to walk in the same and demand the front —

PHILLIP: They tried the same stunt —

BORELLI: The same student to visit January 6th prisoners. They were turned away because they were not welcome. But the point is this was a stunt.

PHILLIP: This is an important distinction. It is actually different. The law —

BORELLI: I had the same privilege here in New York. You don’t get to just push —

PHILLIP: Hold on! No! We’re talking talking about federal law here. The law explicitly states that Congress people are able to enter ICE facilities at any time, at any time. That’s different from a federal prison. It’s different from another detention facility. ICE facilities, in particular, that is what the law says.

BORELLI: You don’t get to just walk in and demand to see people and push and shove. You just admit there was pushing and shoving. You don’t get to go through the barricade of a federal facility and push and shove members of Congress. I saw it. Mr. Mayor, what happens —

The law Phillip referred to was outlined in a letter from Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Patrick Lyons:

Members of Congress possess explicit statutory authority to conduct unannounced oversight visits to facilities operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security. This was outlined in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (Public Law 116-93), Division D – Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2020, Sec. 532 and re-affirmed in each year since, including Section 527(a) of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law 118–47), which stipulates:

None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Homeland Security by this Act may be used to prevent…a Member of Congress…from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland

Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens… [nor] to make any temporary modification at any such facility that in any way alters what is observed by a visiting Member of Congress… compared to what would be observed in the absence of such modification.

Furthermore, subsection (b) clarifies that nothing in this section requires a Member of Congress to provide prior notice of intent to enter such a facility for oversight purposes.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.