‘You Just Made My Point for Me’: CNN Commentator Dunks on Scott Jennings for Admitting How Much Cash Trump Already Gave ICE

CNN commentator Scott Jennings had his point flipped back at him during Monday’s episode of NewsNight, with one of his colleagues merrily embracing a point he made about the Department of Homeland Security shutdown as an admission she thought would be great fodder for political ads for Democrats.

Kasie Hunt guested for Abby Phillip as the panel discussed the latest developments with the standoff between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over funding for DHS, which has meant that TSA agents are working at the nation’s airports without being paid. Numerous agents who cannot afford to forgo their paychecks have been calling out, leading to hours-long security lines.

President Donald Trump has ordered agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the airports. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) confirmed reports Monday that there had been a deal on the table where the Democrats would agree to fund everything but ICE, so the TSA agents could get paid, but Trump killed that deal.

“Scott, you talk to folks in the administration all the time,” said Hunt. “What’s it going to take to get the president to a point where he’s willing to do what a lot of people in the Republican Senate seem to want him to do?”

Jennings said he had heard from people “who were actually at the White House tonight” that several GOP senators went there to talk with Trump.

“I think there is going to be a deal,” said Jennings, adding that he thought “some Democrats may be willing to go along with this,” describing the potential deal as agreeing to “fund DHS, except for the enforcement removal operations, EROs,” which is “about 6,000 of the 260,000 employees.”

The next step, said Jennings, would be for Republicans to “go to a reconciliation plan wherein that you then do the ERO funding and you try to do the Save America Act.”

“And the only reason this is possible is because the president got them plenty of money last summer in the Big Beautiful Bill for ICE operations,” Jennings added, noting that the Democrats would “never support reconciliation” but the Republicans might be able to “get a few Democrats on board” with the phase one funding part, and so “this might be how it ends, and maybe you get it done this week, and maybe we get these poor TSA agents their paychecks.”

“Scott, you just made my point for me,” responded CNN political commentator Ashley Allison.

“The president got so much money in the summer, so why do they actually need more?” she continued. “That is the point that Democrats are making. You just gave them a runnable clip on every commercial. They don’t need this money to be a part of this bill in order to fund FEMA, TSA, and a couple other components of the Homeland Security.”

Allison added she was skeptical about Republican claims this shutdown would “backfire” on Democrats, because she didn’t think it “actually plays well” when Trump is “spending all this money on a Rose Garden ceremony, and TSA agents are still waiting for their paychecks.

Watch the clip above via CNN

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