CNN’s panel on Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement turned into a complete rout for anti-Trump conservative Jonah Goldberg after Republican strategist Scott Jennings dismantled his talking points with brutal clarity. What started as the usual round of Trump-bashing quickly became an embarrassing display of just how weak the anti-Trump arguments really are when confronted with facts.
It began with CNN political commentator Jamal Simmons, who painted an absurdly dark picture of Trump’s presidency. “We know the president is obviously setting up a regime that has a lot of very bad characteristics. There are military forces on the ground. He’s threatening to put them in other cities,” Simmons warned, going so far as to claim Trump was bypassing ethical limits and the courts.
Host Kasie Hunt turned to Jennings and asked if the phrase “the leader” bothered him. Jennings wasted no time in calling out the hyperbole. “Well, to refer to the duly elected president of the United States, who won the national popular vote and overwhelmingly in the Electoral College, a regime to me is a little beyond the pale,” Jennings said.
He then reminded the panel that Trump had run and won on two key issues — and enforcing immigration law was one of them.
But Goldberg, whose career as of late has been built on taking shots at Trump from the right, tried to argue that Trump was undermining the Constitution. “Congress has sole authority over trade,” Goldberg said. “And the president’s argument is that by declaring an emergency, he gets to take away those constitutional prerogatives from the House. He’s declared nine emergencies since he was elected, so that he can violate all sorts of constitutional norms when it comes to deporting people on all sorts of other things.”
Jennings went straight for the weak point in Goldberg’s case. “Do you believe it is violating constitutional norms for the president, the head of the federal government, the head of the executive branch, to be enforcing federal immigration law?” Jennings asked pointedly.
Goldberg tried to hedge. “No,” he admitted.
Jennings then landed the knockout punch: “Because a big issue here, there are over half a million illegal immigrants in Illinois. I suspect most of them live in and around Chicago. Why wouldn’t you surge federal law enforcement resources to the place where that many people are violating federal law?”
Recommended: Epstein Files Drop: The Left's Trump Smear Campaign Just Collapsed
Goldberg had no real answer. He tried to split hairs about ICE versus the National Guard, but Jennings didn’t let him off the hook. “Do you believe it’s wrong for the president to send ICE, CPB because the Democrats in Chicago don’t want any of it for some reason?” Jennings pressed.
Without anywhere to go, Goldberg resorted to a weak concession: “I’m not here to defend the Democrats in Chicago. They suck too.” From there, he rambled about Trump not caring about “constitutional rules and prerogatives” and repeated the tired claim that Trump thinks he can “do whatever the hell” he wants.
Jennings, however, brought the debate back to reality. “Well, he is saying that he believes it is his responsibility when there is an emergency in the country to try to respond to that emergency. And what he has also said is that these Democrats should be asking him for help,” Jennings explained. “And by the way, what’s happening in Washington right now, I think, shows what could happen when some local person, even a Democrat, says, actually, you know what? This is a good thing.”
Simmons tried to change the subject by complaining that the government was detaining migrants attending legal hearings, asking, “How is that an emergency?”
Jennings didn’t blink: “Well, it is an emergency that we have millions upon, millions upon millions of illegal immigrants in this country that were let into the country through open borders,” he fired back. “And now we have to try to get them out. It is—I mean, our view is it’s absolutely an emergency.”
That was the moment Goldberg was finished.
The panel tried to paint Trump as a tyrant, but Jennings flipped the script, forcing Goldberg to face an undeniable fact: Trump is president, and enforcing immigration law is his constitutional duty. Stripped of the alarmist rhetoric about “regimes” and “emergencies,” all that remained was a president acting within his authority to clean up the mess he inherited. Goldberg stumbled over norms and prerogatives, while Jennings framed the debate simply: millions of illegal immigrants are in the country, and the executive branch must act. That’s not authoritarianism; that’s leadership.
When Jonah Goldberg’s anti-Trump routine crumbled on live CNN, it proved how flimsy the media’s attacks really are. PJ Media delivers the hard truths ignored by the corporate press. Support fearless conservative journalism by joining PJ Media VIP—get exclusive access and ad-free reading with promo code FIGHT for 60% off. Support the truth, join now.