CNN’s Abby Phillip Torpedoes Pro-Trump Host Over Economy: ‘You Can’t Gaslight’

CNN anchor Abby Phillip torpedoed a pro-Trump guest’s take on President Donald Trump’s economy, accusing him of “gaslighting” by omitting the first year of Trump’s term.

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip convened a panel consisting of Adam Mockler, Jason Rantz, Ashley Allison, Elizabeth Pipko, and Rana Foroohar.

During a segment on the U.S. economy’s role in the Iran war, Rantz — a conservative radio host — praised GDP growth, prompting Phillip to throw cold water on what she described as “not some blockbuster number” in the context of the previous year:

ALLISON: But when you’re the president of the United States, you have to look at the totality of circumstances, right? And so if, yes, Iran is one piece on the playing — on the chessboard, but the American economy, you could say, was your queen, right? And like the Iran might — I mean, I hate to put it like this, but might have been like your front row of pawns, but the economy to the American people were your queen in chess and he exposed this queen. And so you lose the game when your queen becomes —

RANTZ: But, politically, I think it exposes the queen.

ALLISON: It’s a good way —

PIPKO: Not just politically, but like —

RANTZ: Well, we have 2 percent — I’m sorry, we have 2 percent GDP growth, we have 10 percent increase in business investments in this country. That does matter.

PHILLIP: 2 percent GDP growth, just to be clear, is not some blockbuster number.

FOROOHAR: No, it’s not.

PHILLIP: We are not in —

RANTZ: But we’re pretending it’s going in the opposite direction.

PHILLIP: Hold on, but it is not — that’s coming off of a period in which GDP growth was less than 1 percent. Don’t — we can’t gaslight about the actual history. A whole year of virtually zero private sector job growth, GDP growth that was below 1 percent and only went up to 2 percent is not a victory. It’s a sign of an economy that is —

MOCKLER: It is struggling.

(CROSSTALKS)

RANTZ: I’m sorry, but when you say that there’s growth and then we’re struggling, it doesn’t add.

PHILLIP: Let me put it this way. It’s a sign of a resilient economy, which suggests that it is taking headwinds. This economy — let me let Rana weigh in on that.

FOROOHAR: Well, also, you know, I like your framing of the chessboard. I would actually say Iran’s sort of a bishop, you know? It’s important, you know, the U.S. economy’s the queen, but here’s what — if you’re going to take the bishop — and I agree, you know, you can say this is an important thing to do, you’ve got to get it just right. Iran is not Venezuela. Iran is a tough nut, maybe the toughest nut, aside from, say, the South China Seas, to crack. You go in, you know, you knock out everybody we could’ve negotiated with, but the judges are still in place, the repression state is still in place, so people can’t rise up.

This was, you know, an absolute screw-up in terms of how it was done, and it is going to be a legacy for a decade for this country. It really is.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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