Shame on CNN for platforming this nutjob in the first place. Abby Phillip already hosts one of the worst talking heads political panel shows on television due to the presence of Scott Jennings on there night after night. Her producers apparently decided that wasn't enough to drive viewers away and booked Stephen Miller's wife, Katie Miller, as a guest on this Friday's show, and things went about as well as expected.
Miller is still very upset that podcaster Jennifer Welch said this about her husband during an episode where Phillip was a guest:
"What do you do when the racists are in charge, like they are now?" Welch asked.
"I mean, like Stephen Miller is a White supremacist. I mean, he is. And he's basically running the White House. They keep Trump busy with his decorating projects. He's got building the arch now. He's got his Oval Office design," she continued. "And then you have these real sociopaths that are real antisemites, true White supremacists like Steven Miller. And even though he's Jewish, he's like a Nazi Jew."
While discussing the influence of Nick Fuentes on the Republican party, things blew up quickly:
SELLERS: and let me just -- let me put a bow on this one, one more thing. Because what they don't realize is that even a part of this MAGA base, the fact that we're even mentioning Nick Fuentes, he's 4'11", he's misogynistic and he's anti-Semitic, but yet he's somebody who has the pulse of the Republican base right now? They need to excise him.
JENNINGS: That's absolutely false.
MILLER: Nick does not have the pulse of the Republican base. It's what Democrats want to say to divide the Republican base when that isn't true.
But I want to go back something really quick.
After a little more back and forth, things completely derailed:
PHILLIP: So, what does it say that Vance didn't feel like part of what -- if he wants to lead the Republican Party, part of what he has to do is to police the boundaries of what's acceptable and what's not. And not say, hey, Tucker, unacceptable, don't do that?
MILLER: It's not up to you or myself to police speech in our country.
PHILLIP: I mean, shouldn't it be up to J.D. Vance to say, this is not part of our movement?
SELLERS: Are you okay with Nick Fuentes?
MILLER: Here we go. I'm a Jew. Do you want to go there? And let's say this.
SELLERS: Yes, I just asked the question. It was yes or no?
MILLER: Yes. I'm okay --
SELLERS: Are you okay with Nick Fuentes?
MILLER: If Nick Fuentes wants to be able to speak freely in our country, he has every right to do so. Do I agree with his views? Do I think that they should be --
SELLERS: I'm just asking a yes or no question.
MILLER: Absolutely not.
PHILLIP: Hold on.
MILLER: By the way, I really want to go back to this for one second.
PHILLIP: This isn't about whether he can speak freely. It's about whether someone like Tucker Carlson, who is a very powerful force in the conservative movement. He is --
MILLER: You host people on your show all the time who call my husband and myself a Nazi.
PHILLIP: Hold on. I don't --
MILLER: So, how is that any different from Tucker Carlson going on --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: He's actually --
SELLERS: He's anti-Semitic. He's anti-Semite.
PHILLIP: -- A Hitler admirer. Nick Fuentes is actually a Hitler admirer.
SELLERS: But he literally is not a good human being.
PHILLIP: That is a different thing, by the way, that --
MILLER: Excuse me, you have Jennifer Welch on your show very often and you've never pushed back as she has called my husband a white nationalist.
PHILLIP: Hold on.
MILLER: That is no different than Nick Fuentes going on Tucker Carlson's show. It's not and you should admit it.
PHILLIP: Well, hold on. Wait, hold on. How is it anything similar? It's not remotely similar at all. Nick Fuentes sits around and says that he likes Hitler. How is that similar to --
JENNINGS: What does Hitler had to do with it? What does she have to do with it?
PHILLIP: Hold on.
JENNINGS: She has nothing to do with it.
PHILLIP: Hold on.
JENNINGS: Literally nothing,
PHILLIP: Scott, Katie is the person who just said to me that it is comparable to say that Nick Fuentes, who is literally a neo-Nazi, is the same as somebody, a liberal who has an opinion, who is not a neo- Nazi --
JENNINGS: A hateful opinion.
PHILLIP: They are not --
MILLER: A hateful opinion.
PHILLIP: -- the same.
MILLER: How do you want -- excuse me, let's go back one more time. Nick Fuentes can espouse an opinion on Tucker's show.
PHILLIP: It is not the same thing.
MILLER: And he didn't push back, the same way you didn't say push back when someone called someone in my family a Nazi. It's not different, Abby.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
MILLER: It's not.
PHILLIP: If someone comes on this show and says, I love Hitler and I admire what he did, they would never -- first of all, I would never invite them on the show and they would never be invited back. So, those two things are not --
MILLER: But yet you've gone on Jennifer Welch's podcast. It's the same thing. It's the same thing.
PHILLIP: They are not the same thing, okay?
But, Katie -- but hold on, Katie. Do you believe that Jennifer Welch has a right to say something negative about your husband?
MILLER: The same way Nick Fuentes has the right to say what he wants to say.
PHILLIP: So, you think -- do you think that it's okay -- hold on. Do you think it is okay for Jennifer Welch, is she allowed to say something negative about your husband?
MILLER: Absolutely. And it's your job as a moderator to push back.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, that's the first thing.
MILLER: It's the same way you're asking Tucker Carlson to push back against Nick Fuentes.
PHILLIP: But hold on, Nick Fuentes --
MILLER: Is it not different?
PHILLIP: Nick Fuentes is espousing -- he's not describing someone else as a Nazi. He is saying, I admire Nazis. You don't think that's a different thing?
MILLER: Do you believe my husband's Nazi? The last one your show --
PHILLIP: But do you think that that's -- do you think those things are different or not?
SELLERS: I don't think anybody around this table believes --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: You are making a comparison of two things that are not in any way the same. I acknowledge that you that -- and, listen, when people --
MILLER: It happened more than once, Abby.
PHILLIP: But hold on.
MILLER: At one point, it's a common occurrence.
PHILLIP: When people say their opinions, I don't endorse them but I also am not responsible for their opinions.
MILLER: So, doesn't that apply to Tuck Carlson?
PHILLIP: That is different from a person themselves describing themselves as a hatemonger.
MILLER: Is Tucker Carlson responsible for Nick Fuentes' opinions?
PHILLIP: So -- but hold on a second. I am also not a Republican Party official or a Democrat Party official.
MILLER: Neither does Tucker Carlson.
PHILLIP: So, I'm asking you about you as a Republican and who you think is the leader of your party, right? And I'm asking --
MILLER: Right, that's President Donald J. Trump.
PHILLIP: And I'm asking your opinion, your opinion, okay, if you think that J.D. Vance is that person, do you think that he should be sitting at a table and nodding along with Nick Fuentes, yes or no?
MILLER: I don't believe J.D. Vance has ever sat and nodded along with Nick Fuentes. And that would be Tucker Carlson.
PHILLIP: Do you think it is okay for J.D. Vance to think it's okay for Tucker Carlson to sit and nod along with --
MILLER: I think it's okay for Tucker Carlson to have Nick Fuentes on the show, the same way you have people on your show who has had similar views.
PHILLIP: Hold on, that's all I asked you. And we can just leave it at that. Because at the end of the day, that is what the Republican Party has to decide. Do they care whether or not someone who has a loud voice of their party is bringing on somebody who is encouraging neo-Nazism?
JENNINGS: Wait.
PHILLIP: And if you think that that is okay --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We have to leave it at that.
Sadly, what Phillip did not say to her is that what Jennifer Welch said is true.
