CNN’s Abby Phillip moderated a panel on Thursday night that didn’t go quite as planned. Phillip has become increasingly well-known in recent years and has made a name for herself on the network. Of course, to make a name for yourself on CNN, you have to be a scribbler who regularly comes to the aid of the Democrats.
Phillip has not disappointed in this area, and since Kamala Harris assumed the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, she has gotten even worse. While she briefly acted like a real journalist in the fight to throw Joe Biden under the bus, anyone paying attention knows that this bout of press honesty was self-serving and designed to benefit only the Democrats.
SEE: Matt Gaetz causes CNN anchor to abandon interview after he checked her on air
On Wednesday, Phillip provided another example of her inability to do her job during a “State of the Race” opinion piece that featured a variety of Democratic analysts and Republican analyst Scott Jennings, the latter of whom continued to do a great job as the lone voice of reason on CNN. This time, however, it wasn’t just Jennings who spoke up. Phillip spread a lie so egregious that even the liberals on the panel couldn’t let it slide.
Watch CNN’s @abbydphillip are immediately criticized by the entire panel for lying about Kamala’s plan to ban fracking pic.twitter.com/oL7gqh1Pvx
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) 12 September 2024
TURNER: On the fracking question to the vice president, and that’s me as a liberator. She said in 2019 when she was running, “I’m done with fracking, you know, we’re going to abolish it.” You can’t say you’re going to abolish it. They had her totally on the right track with that. What you can say as a candidate is, “I’m not in 2019, I’m not in 2020, and you know what, I’ve changed my mind.”
PHILLIP: Well, she, she, I think the point, the reality is that she turned around in 2020, so…
(Crosstalk while everyone else is checking their facts at the same time)
Why would a supposedly unbiased news anchor jump into the story to spread easily debunked lies in defense of Kamala Harris? That should be the first question one asks after watching this clip. Nina Turner is a radical leftist, but she is correct that the vice president opposed fracking in the 2020 election. Phillip probably read someone on social media saying otherwise and didn’t bother to research the claim, but why is it even her job to make this argument?
The ABC News moderators did the same thing during Tuesday night’s debate. On at least two occasions, they went out of their way to “check” Donald Trump’s facts, only to find that they were false or misleading. Journalists should focus on their job, which is reporting news, not creating it. If Phillip wants to be an analyst, she should drop the false cloak of objectivity and become one herself.
Again, Phillip is playing a devious game. At no point in 2020 did Harris change her position, rejecting her previous calls for an unequivocal ban on fracking. Instead, she joined a presidential campaign that took a different view by virtue of being the frontrunner. Harris is now at the top of the list. She can’t pretend her position has changed just because she kept her mouth shut as Biden’s vice president, and it’s a shame that ABC News anchors didn’t press Harris on the issue.
Still, it’s comical to see that even left-wing analysts on a CNN panel are willing to roll their eyes and dismiss some of the lies these hosts are spouting. Harris promised to ban fracking entirely. That’s the truth, and she has offered no explanation for her supposed change of heart on the issue.
