‘Smells Bad!’ CNBC’s Joe Kernen Grills Republican Leader Over Trump’s $1.8B ‘Slush Fund’

CNBC’s Joe Kernen argued that the settlement reached between President Donald Trump and his own administration to end his his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS “smells bad” during an interview with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) on Friday.

After observing that Democrats are always asking when Republicans are going to stand up to the president, the pro-Trump host asked, “The slush fund, or whatever you want to call it, the move to go back on the audits and permanently put those to bed, is that a bridge too far for some Republicans that might have been uncomfortable with other things? Is that-, are we finally hitting a point where some people are saying enough, or…”

“Let’s first put it in context,” Emmer replied. “This is a Senate that tells us regularly they don’t have the votes. They don’t have the votes for the SAVE America Act that more than 70% of Americans agree with. You’re bringing up something that was added, as I understand it, to the funding bill — we call it the funding bill because we had to do it with 50-plus-one because Democrats apparently hate our law enforcement and weren’t willing to fund CBP and ICE. Now they’ve added this fund.”

He added: “I would like to hear from Todd Blanche. I understand that they [Senate Republicans] started to hear from him yesterday as to exactly what this is. Great! Let’s find out what it is before everybody crucifies it. I think people over there look for excuses every day to say no instead of enacting the agenda of 77 million people.”

After acknowledging that after two impeachments, there was a bit of a Boy Who Cried Wolf effect to criticism of Trump, Kernen followed up:

Maybe having your own personal lawyer at this point become AG, the AG is the only person that could have gotten rid of these audits, right? And it was his personal lawyer! It just looks… It just look-, smells bad! But I have said the president is so upset with the way he’s been treated in terms of lawfare that if he can do something, he does it because he can at this point.

“Joe, I think it’s unfair to say it’s just the president who’s upset. Americans are upset,” Emmer shot back. “They don’t want to see their government be used against anyone, Donald Trump or anybody else. And by the way, it was so egregious what they did to Donald Trump and his family. It’s one of the reasons that he’s back in the office. America wants this cleaned up, and Donald Trump is going to make sure it is.”

Kernen went on to call the $1.776 billion pool of cash being made available to applicants claiming to be victims of government wrongdoing a “retribution fund.”

“We’re going to find out what it is,” asserted Emmer. “I mean, I’m not going to give it a term. I want to know what it is, if it’s going to be reimbursements to people who have been wrongfully prosecuted and attacked by their federal government. Let’s find out what it is first, before everybody denigrates it.”

Watch above via CNBC.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!