'Stop with the hyperbole': Shouting breaks out on CNN as Republicans defend Jan. 6 pardons
Shouting broke out Tuesday night on CNN over a heated discussion over recent presidential pardons and commutations, including violent offenders found guilty of attacking police officers on Jan. 6.
On Tuesday, the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police issued a rare joint statement slamming recent pardons from President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden. Trump pardoned about 1,500 people in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, including more than 600 charged with assaulting, resisting, or obstructing police officers.
Biden commuted the death sentence for Daryl Lawrence, who killed a police officer — he will now serve a life term in prison — and freed Ferrone Claiborne and Terence Richardson, known as the "Waverly Two," who were convicted in the death of a police officer. In that case, a jury found the men not guilty, but a judge sentenced both to life in prison based on other guilty pleas.
The pardons became the topic of a heated discussion late Tuesday on CNN's "NewsNight," with Republican strategist Scott Jennings backing Trump's defense of the Jan. 6 pardons.
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"How many were prosecuted ultimately because lots of people had their charges dropped," he said, prompting an immediate answer from anchor Abby Phillip, who shot back: "I actually have the answer for you. And its hundreds of them who were charged and prosecuted."
Jennings wouldn't hear it, though, and tried to cut her off.
"I saw an analysis that most people who were charged had their charges dropped," he insisted. When asked what charges those people faced, Jennings tried to push back, "All kinds of charges."
Phillip fact-checked him to his face though, noting those who saw their charges dropped included failure to disperse and similar crimes.
"Those who were charged with violent crimes, those charges were not dismissed, those were prosecuted," she fired back.
Then Phillip asked Jennings and Michael van der Veen, who represented six Jan. 6 defendants, if they see a "substantive difference" between Jan. 6 and the George Floyd riots.
"Why the federal has a desire, in fact a necessity to prevent that from ever happening again — don't you think there's a substantive difference?" she asked.
When Jennings jumped in to say he doesn't see a difference, Phillip pushed back again.
"You don't think there's a difference between trying to overturn an election and violent social justice protests?!" she asked, incredulous.
Jennings said both groups of people were "mad" and sought to seek change by "taking matters into their own hands, which they should not have done."
Jennings then blamed "culture and public discourse" for deciding one group was "good" and the other was "bad."
"The reality is they had the same motivations," he said, leading to a chorus of shouts on the panel.
He received swift opposition from Democratic political commentator Ashley Allison, who turned to a profane acronym to sum up her feelings.
"F.A.F.O." she said. "Ok? Go Google it if you don't know what that means. I can't say it on national television. But this is the era that we are in."
As Allison tried to assert that Black Lives Matter protesters rioted over the "unjust" murder of a Black man at the hands of police, Republicans on the panel shouted at her.
"That doesn't give you the right to break into the Nike store! That doesn't give you the right to break into Tiffany's!" shouted Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer Arthur Aidala.
"How about this?! How about you let me finish?!" Allison fired back.
"Blowing up a police precinct!" Aidala retorted.
Aidala and Phillip clashed again later in the discussion, as he tried to insist no more than 100 protesters attacked police officers.
"Arthur let's just stop with the hyperbole," Phillip tried to calm her guest.
"It's not hyperbole! It's a fact! I'll be in federal court tomorrow! It's a fact!" he exclaimed.
"You gave the impression that it's a handful of people that's charged with violent offenses. That is not true," Phillip scolded.