CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Drops Hard Receipt on Trump Honchos as Scott Jennings Tries to Both-Sides

CNN anchor and senior White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins dropped a tough receipt on President Donald Trump’s senior officials when GOP analyst Scott Jennings tried to both-sides the issue of “rhetoric” in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti by Trump deportation forces.

Chaos and widespread outrage erupted Saturday when Trump Border Patrol agents shot a man in Minneapolis as social media video of the incident circulated.

Protests erupted immediately, and Trump officials rushed to make outlandish claims about Pretti, the man who was shot — even falsely labeling him an “assassin.”

But multiple videos of the shooting refuted those claims.

Trump’s initial reaction was to lash out and blame Pretti and Democratic leaders in a lengthy social media rant. But as the outrage grew, the president pumped the brakes a little, and by Monday, was striking a conciliatory tone with Democrats in Minnesota.

On Monday’s edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, Jennings wrapped up a panel segment by veering off to blame Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Mayor Jacob Frey (D-MN) for their “rhetoric.”

But Collins had the last word by reminding him what senior adviser Stephen Miller and Vice President JD Vance had to say about the man who was killed:

JENNINGS: You don’t have chaos anywhere else in the country, nowhere else except Minneapolis. And what does Minneapolis have that nobody else has? Walz and Frey, and a failure to cooperate, and them out, radicalizing their constituents, comparing this to the Diary of Anne Frank, calling it the Battle of Gettysburg? Come on. That is not responsible rhetoric.

So, for whatever you want to say about Stephen Miller, or anybody else at the White House. The local politicians have responsibility to be more measured in their own rhetoric, and to simply cooperate with the federal government, good for–

COLLINS: Well, I mean, speaking of being measured in your rhetoric. The Vice President also retweeted Stephen Miller, calling Alex Pretti an assassin, something that no one is even repeating today.

Paul Begala. Scott Jennings. Thank you both for joining me tonight.

BEGALA: Thank you.

Watch above via CNN’s The Situation Room.

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