‘Those Are Facts!’ CNN Crew Gangs Up On Pro-Trump Analyst Over Abortion

CNN’s morning show crew took exception with pro-Trump analyst Brad Todd over a variety of assertions he made about the issue of abortion after Liz Cheney spoke about the issue at a Vice President Kamala Harris rally.

Cheney spoke at a Harris event Monday, during which she decried the post-Dobbs tragedies that have unfolded and told Republican women, “You can vote your conscience and not ever have to say a word to anybody. And there will be millions of Republicans who do that on November 5th.”

On Monday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, anchor Kasie Hunt hosted a panel consisting of Todd, Alex Thompson, Kate Bedingfield, and Jonah Goldberg to discuss Cheney’s support for Harris and evolution on abortion. Cheney signed an amicus brief in Dobbs.

Goldberg hit back at Todd’s assertion that Cheney “sold out” her principles, while Bedingfield confronted Todd’s claim that there needs to be “fact-checking” about women not getting care thanks to post-Dobbs laws:

KASIE HUNT: I mean, I just think it’s fascinating to listen to her talk about this.

KATE BEDINGFIELD: It is. I mean, she’s kind of giving voice to the like the dog that caught the car issue that Republicans have had on this.

I mean, they’ve been hard charging, trying to overturn Roe for four decades. And then they did.

And all of these consequences, which I guess maybe they would argue were unforeseen, although I don’t know how you could reasonably argue that, you know, are now having an impact on people’s lives and also, by the way, costing them electorally.

So, you know, to hear her to hear Liz Cheney of all people, kind of give voice to that really tells you where this issue has moved in the two years since that decision.

KASIE HUNT: I mean, Jonah, I think for me, I think the question is, is there space here for –? Is that something that might resonate with otherwise conservative voters, people who say, yes, I think an elective abortion would be morally wrong. I’m opposed to that.

But if I’m having a miscarriage and I go to the hospital and I need something, it sort of makes sense to me that I should, they should take care of me. Is there space for that?

JONAH GOLDBERG: I think look, look, I think so. I think that there is I mean, Kate referred to the dog that catches the car thing. That has been a huge issue on the right. Is that the right, the pro-life movement, had not really thought about day one post grow very much and they had not developed their arguments very well.

And all of a sudden the edge cases which were on the pro-life side about partial birth abortion and late term abortion, no matter how rare they do it, it does happen. This stuff in Minnesota.

All the sudden the edge cases flip, the emotional edge cases flip to being on the pro-choice side. And very few people have any idea how to argue about that, how to defend the new environment. And I think this is part of the shakeout.

ALEX THOMPSON: Well and a lot of women have been the collateral damage about lack of foresight from that movement. And that’s also why so many women are, especially with so many abortion rights ballot amendments on the ballots in key swing states that could end up being the deciding factor in the race.

KASIE HUNT: Can I just say that the fringe cases that you say? I mean, there are a lot more of them in this construction than there are–, you know.

The number of partial birth abortions in the country, as is very– late term, abortion is very low. The number of women who get pregnant every year and have something bad happen is very high!

BRAD TODD: But you don’t hear when you go to the rallies for Kamala Harris, you don’t hear that at every state you have emergency medical care. They-+- she her rallies are not fact checked on this subject. And I also hate—

KASIE HUNT: You do in places like I mean, there are.

BRAD TODD: I hatedto watch Liz Cheney, who signed the amicus briefs on the Dobbs case who said, let’s push this back to the states? Who said, who’s made a career? She was rated above all the pro-life groups when she was in in Congress.

And she’s now so all in for the Democratic ticket that she’s going to sell out all her principles before. I didn’t I thought that was a bad look for her.

JONAH GOLDBERG: I’m sorry, I don’t hear anything that means she sold out all our principles. So we got a huge fight about this on Twitter. A lot of friends of mine last night and everyone that ways was originally broken on Twitter, which is again a bad place to be at night.

KASIE HUNT: Your friends are making some interesting appearances at the table–

JONAH GOLDBERG: That she came out against overturning Roe which came out against Dobbs. There’s nothing in what she said there that says she came out against Dobbs.

What she said, that some of this stuff, some of the consequences in some state legislatures have have gone to the point where women aren’t getting the medical care they need.

You can have a problem with that. You can have a problem of the political messaging of it. But I don’t think it’s fair to say she sold out.

BRAD TODD: All right. Okay. Where’s Liz Cheney campaign for Republicans for the US Senate, where she can’t pay for Republicans to control the House? I don’t see her doing any of that.

JONAH GOLDBERG: Yeah but that’s not selling all the principles, that’s a different strategy. That’s politics.

KATE BEDINGFIELD: I just want to push back on the idea that Kamala Harris’s rallies are not fact checked on this.

I mean, she’s talking about the cases of women who have lost their lives in Georgia. You have a woman in Texas who’s been very prominent spokesperson on this because of her experience –.

KASIE HUNT: Kate Cox.

KATE BEDINGFIELD: –Kate Cox, where, you know, she lost her baby and then was nearly rendered infertile because she couldn’t get medical care. I mean, these are facts. These are stories. These are happening because of the fact that these protections have been rolled back. That’s, that’s just true!

I mean, there is that’s not you know, you can argue about whether you agree with that decision, but those are, those are facts! That’s what’s happening to women in this country because we no longer have the protections of Roe v. Wade.

BRAD TODD: There’s a middle ground where we can work to make sure everyone has the medical care they need.

KASIE HUNT: I think that’s the ground she was trying to stake out there. She’s not saying we need to put road versus way back. She is saying that these laws that are resulting from the fall of row are unsustainable. I mean, that was the word that she used.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.