Trump Ally Loses It During Wild CNN Fracas: ‘Don’t Call Me a Liar on National TV!’

CNN anchor Abby Phillip sided against an ally of President Donald Trump in a fracas that saw outraged panelists accuse each other of being “liars” on the issue of election fraud.

Trump and Republicans have sought to cast doubt on the election results in California with unfounded claims of fraud, due to the length of time it takes to achieve a final vote count — a premise that fact-checkers have debunked.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip hosted a panel that included Charles Blow, Caroline Sunshine, Ana Navarro, Hal Lambert, and L.Z. Granderson.

When Lambert and Sunshine — both Trump allies — promoted the election doubt, Blow finally lost it and called Lambert a liar. That’s when Lambert lost it and called Blow a liar. But Phillip stepped in and interrogated Lambert:

SUNSHINE: I think perception is reality, and I think it’s exactly the inverse. Mail-in voting, fine, but why can’t it all be counted on Election Day? You have this — it’s creating this perception —

NAVARRO: Because that’s the law.

GRANDERSON: Because it’s mail.

SUNSHINE: — among people — mail in your ballot, but get it in on Election Day. Because it’s creating this perception among people, correctly so, like, why don’t we know the result on Election Day?

GRANDERSON: No. President Trump inserting doubt is creating perception.

SUNSHINE: I live outside of Los Angeles County, but I knew people who voted in Los Angeles who did not have to show an I.D. to vote. So, the combination of not having to show an I.D. and the fact that we don’t know the winner on Election Day creates a lot of doubt. Any common sense person feels that way.

GRANDERSON: You know one of the first things, oh, I’ll ask, do you remember one of the first things that Vice President Pence was tasked with when they first came to the White House?

SUNSHINE: I don’t know anything about Vice President Pence.

GRANDERSON: But I will tell you, it was asked to investigate voter fraud. It was one of the first things that President Trump in his first term set out to do was to investigate voter fraud. And you know what they found? Nothing.

PHILLIP: Charles?

GRANDERSON: They found nothing.

BLOW: I just believe that this is a news show on a news channel. I have an ethical responsibility to say that you are lying.

LAMBERT: No, you are lying. I have an ethical responsibility.

BLOW: I didn’t interrupt you, and you will not attack me.

PHILLIP: Hold on–

LAMBERT: You don’t call me a liar on national TV.

PHILLIP: Hal, I’m going to have to let you respond in just a minute. Charles, finish your point. BLOW: I can spell it too. I have an ethical responsibility if people

are going to come over here and poison voters’ views of an election system that has no proof that it is rigged in any way, spouting the same lie that the President is spouting.

We have an ethical responsibility at this table in a news show, on a news channel, to call that out. And I’m going to do that. You can huff and puff and be mad all you want, and I don’t care.

PHILLIP: Hal, you can respond to that.

LAMBERT: You keep ignoring what I’ve said.

BLOW: I’m going to keep ignoring it.

PHILLIP: Let me let him finish. Let me let him respond.

LAMBERT: We didn’t know there was mass Medicare fraud until the federal government investigated Minnesota, investigated these other states.

L.Z. GRANDERSON: That’s not true. That is not true. She was in jail already.

PHILLIP; Let me just ask you to do two things: First of all, let us try to be tethered in facts. Second of all, let’s respond to what he said about your claims on the election.

I don’t want to hear about Medicare fraud. I don’t want to hear about any kind of other fraud other than your claims of voter fraud and what proof you have of them.

LAMBERT: Because California will not allow the federal government to review their voter rolls.

PHILLIP: A majority of other states in this country, including many Republican-led states, also will not allow the federal government to inspect their voter rolls. Why?

Because it is not legal for them to do that. And all the cases in which they have been challenged, Hal, all of them so far have been thrown out by judges because there is no legal basis for the federal government to inspect their state voter rolls. So what else do you have?

LAMBERT: My point is that he’s saying there’s no evidence. They won’t allow evidence to be gathered.

BLOW: The absurdity of your point is that you don’t have proof. I can prove that I don’t have proof because they won’t let us investigate. So you don’t have proof and you just proved that you don’t have it.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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