CNN’s Abby Phillip Stops Guest Cold Over Claim About Iran War and Stocks: ‘Hold On, Hold On…’

CNN’s Abby Phillip stopped a conservative guest cold as he bragged about pundits being wrong about the Iran war and the stock market “soaring to all-time highs.”

On Tuesday’s NewsNight, the table debated the ongoing Iran war, and Jesse Arm, vice president and pollster of the Manhattan Institute, argued “prognosticators and pundits” got market impact predictions wrong to make the point that they may be wrong now about the war lacking a strategy and needing to end.

“The markets are soaring to all-time highs at this point. It’s possible that the president may believe that the pundits and prognosticators are getting wrong—” Arm said as Phillip jumped in.

“Hold on, hold on. The impact of this war is not limited to the stock market,” Phillip said.

She argued rising costs, such as gas prices, are more impactful for Americans than stocks doing well. According to AAA, the average national gas price sits at over $4 a gallon. The average before the war was under $3.

“Gas prices are still elevated significantly compared to where they were on the day before this war began. So, it is not true that there has been no economic impact. That is completely false,” she said.

“That’s not what I said,” Arm countered. “I said that pundits are got wrong which direction the market would travel in.”

“The pundits did not limit their punditry to just what the stock is going to do,” Phillip shot back. “Because what the stock market does is only a fraction of the economy. The rest of the American public that is not invested in the stock market, they are going to the gas pump every day. That’s what really matters when it comes to voters.”

“My only point is that the president may believe that the pundits are wrong about the politics of this conflict as well,” Arm said.

“Maybe he does, but the numbers are also pretty clear there, too. This is an unpopular war,” Phillip said, referring to the low approval ratings for President Donald Trump on the ongoing conflict.

Arm argued that “money talks though,” adding, “the RNC is currently out raising the DNC by orders of magnitude. Ken Martin, the DNC chair, had to issue a document today basically explaining why his party is in the red,” Arm said.

“You’re still losing!” Keith Boykin, an aide to former President Bill Clinton, yelled out as Phillip closed the segment. “You’re still losing in the polls!”

Watch above via CNN.

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