‘It’s Not Great’: Jessica Tarlov Tries to Clarify Elie Mystal’s Rant About Murder and Undocumented Immigrants
Fox News host Jessica Tarlov conceded that progressive commentator Elie Mystal’s latest rant on illegal immigrants was “not great” when confronted about it by her co-hosts on The Five.
The segment began with a clip of Mystal, a regular figure on MSNBC offering legal analysis, saying on a Friday podcast, “Why do I care what their status was when they committed the crime, if you can prove they committed a crime? I say in the book, if I get shot, if I get murdered by an undocumented immigrant, please tell my children I did not care that they were undocumented.”
After the co-hosts took shots at Mystal’s comments, host Dana Perino turned to Tarlov, “Jessica, does it drive you crazy that Mystal is always on TV causing problems for Democrats?”
“Causing problems for me, that’s for sure,” Tarlov, who sits in the show’s one “liberal seat,” joked in reply, adding:
It seems really simple to commend the things that are going well, like tamping down on border crossings, and then you get agencies to say things that you think are not going as well. Because this is the issue that he is above water on, that people, he has a 55% approval rating. On shutting down the border.
What you say also, I guess, you can’t be murdered because then you’d be dead and you can’t say it, but for the example that he was giving that he wouldn’t be mad if someone who was here undocumented murdered him, you say, ‘This is terrible. There’s a direct correlation between crossing the border. And me or somebody ending up dead,’ but that doesn’t mean that you should change how you feel about the undocumented population in general. I think that’s what he was trying to say, or what I hope that he was trying to say.
“But it’s not great,” she concluded, adding, “In terms of the picking strawberries, that’s a larger issue, and you’re going to see the impact again.”
“We’re gonna see,” interrupted Jesse Watters as the two then tussled.
“No, you already–” Tarlov replied as Watters insisted, “We’re gonna see. We never see. Strawberry prices are stable.”
“Well, you are blind,” Tarlov shot back.
“Did you look into the strawberry prices? Have you looked into it?” Watters challenged.
“For everything you’ve looked into, I have looked into it three times more,” Tarlov quipped.
“OK, but then you never contradict me. You just let me beat you down and we go to break,” Watters hit back as Tarlov said, “That’s not true.”
“Jessica, the US Department of Agriculture says strawberry prices are stable,” Watters insisted.
“Jesse, don’t you understand that there is an evolution in this process, that the strawberries-” Tarlov said as Watters joked, “I’m a creationist. Don’t believe in evolution, Jessica.”
“That explains a lot about you,” Tarlov replied, adding, “The hotel industry, the construction industry, restaurants, this is where you feel it, and you are seeing staffing issues at restaurants.”
“Do you ever go out to eat, Jesse?” Tarlov said, “I do, I go out to eat all the time. Just not with you.”
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
