CNN Analyst Asha Rangappa Calls Out GOP Rep Mike Turner for On Air ‘Mansplaining’

CNN analyst and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa called out Ohio Republican Congressman Mike Turner for “mansplaining” classified information during a segment on President Donald Trump’s apparently false claim of imminent threats to U.S. embassies.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, host Erin Burnett asked Turner about the discrepancy between Trump’s claims that he ordered the killing of Iranian Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani because of imminent threats to as many as four U.S. embassies, and his own Defense Department’s inability to substantiate those claims.

“Do you want to hear them publicly explain why he said one thing and they have been unable publicly to even say he’s right?” Burnett asked.

Turner said “I don’t think there’s really an inconsistency,” and claimed that “the president is able to say things that they are not.”

“Once he said it says it, it is then unclassified,” Burnett said, to which Turner replied, “That is not correct, once he says it it is not, any information that I have cannot then be revealed.”

Turner then explained that the secretary of defense doesn’t see all of the information that Trump does,  and said: “They didn’t contradict him, they said we don’t have that information, I didn’t see that information, which again does not say contradict him.”

Turning to Rangappa, Burnett asked, “So when Trump says I can reveal I believe it would have been four embassies and his own secretary of defense, who was responsible for ordering troops to launch a drone attack didn’t see one with regard to foreign embassies, you don’t see that as a contradiction?”

“I see it as a contradiction and I think that if the secretary of defense is not seeing the same information that the president of the United States is, that is a problem in and of itself,” Rangappa said, adding “I also think that from people who have been in these highly sensitive meetings that that would be almost impossible, that the Secretary of defense sees the presidential daily briefing, they’re the ones advising him on the options that are available in this particular case with a military strike.”

“So I feel like, I would hope there’s a congressman he would be incredibly disturbed,” Rangappa said of Rep. Turner.

“Well as you, you haven’t had a classified briefing in 15 years, and even the time period you did, you did not have access to the type of information that goes into the policy decision making, or even the world threats brief,” Turner said. He would go on to explain what he thinks intelligence briefings are “about,” which is not to challenge Trump but are “about people who choose and want to do us harm.”

A screenshot of the segment was tweeted out with the caption “The moment @RepMikeTurner mansplains to @AshaRangappa_ classified information in the most condescending way imaginable,” which Rangappa then retweeted, along with her own assessment.

“I haven’t been mansplained at quite this level since law school…and that involved me asking a 3L what he was doing after graduation, and he looked at me same way as Rep. Turner and said, slowly, ‘Well, there is a test you take after law school…it’s called the BAR EXAM'” she wrote.

I haven’t been mansplained at quite this level since law school…and that involved me asking a 3L what he was doing after graduation, and he looked at me same way as Rep. Turner and said, slowly, “Well, there is a test you take after law school…it’s called the BAR EXAM” ? https://t.co/EjgNuFwZOH

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 17, 2020

The responses included one tweet that summed up Rangappa’s qualifications on the subject of her expertise.

Thanks, Jonah!

— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) January 17, 2020

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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