CNN Table for Five MAGA mouthpiece Scott Jennings' lack of empathy shocked his fellow panelists after his ludicrous justification for a violent nighttime Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid that saw children bound with zip ties.
Host Abby Phillip led the panel discussion about the administration of MAGA Republican President Donald Trump and its handling of people they assume are immigrants in Chicago, Illinois.
The raid perpetrated there by ICE, under direction from Kristi Noem's Department of Homeland Security, drew widespread criticism.
But, as usual, Jennings had a ready excuse for the inexcusable.
Following the script set by the White House, Jennings claimed Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang members were both the targets and the detainees. However, even the official statement from DHS refuted his justification for the violence and traumatized children.
You can see Jennings' remarks here:
An ICE raid took place in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Children were zip-tied and separated from their parents as people were forced out of the apartment building, some with no clothes on.
A neighbor reported the majority of people he saw handcuffed outside the apartment building for hours were Black Americans, not Venezuelans, with some were detained for hours. Residents returning to their apartments found them ransacked with doors wide open after agents broke them down during the surprise attack.
But Jennings falsely claimed 37 Tren de Aragua gang members were arrested.
DHS reported finding only 37 people eligible for detainment—non-citizens—with only two suspected of having some gang affiliation. Four children who are citizens, but whose parents are not, were also taken away by ICE, with the agency claiming it was to verify they weren't being trafficked.
People found Jennings latest defense of the Trump administration's racist policies disgusting.
In response to Jennings' justification, Phillip said:
"Listen Scott, people’s constitutional rights are their constitutional rights."
"When you are sleeping in your bed and you happen to live somewhere, you have a right to not be detained just for not even being in the same apartment, but being in the building."
But Jennings dismissed the basic rights of non-White American citizens, saying:
"I think you’re overblowing it. They are not arrested, no Americans were arrested."
Phillip told the conservatives at the table that they'd find the same treatment unacceptable, saying they wouldn't "want to be detained for any amount of time for not doing anything wrong."
Phillip added:
"It’s a question of empathy. Would you want it to happen to you?"
Jennings responded as expected, sniping:
"Do you have any empathy for the victims of Tren de Aragua? I do."
Journalist and podcaster Van Lathan Jr. replied:
"[I have] empathy for the Black people in that community that I saw on video talk about how frightened they were, how scared they were, and the trauma that was inflicted on them with something that they have nothing to do with."
After overusing the MS13 excuse while producing no proof or results, the Trump administration has shifted to blaming all of their extrajudicial attacks against boats in international waters and ICE overreach on Tren de Aragua.
As with their disproven or exaggerated MS13 claims, Trump, Noem, DHS, and ICE are producing little to no proof to back their claims.
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