Abby Phillip fights with Erick Erickson over her show

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson and CNN’s Abby Phillip argued about the quality of the latter’s show, News Night with Abby Phillip on Wednesday after Erickson called it a “discredit” to CNN and “an embarrassment.”

Erickson introduced the argument this way:

The tagline for NewsNight on CNN is: “Abby Phillip delivers an intelligent, incisive approach to the day’s biggest stories.” I was invited to the show several times and had scheduling conflicts that made it impossible for me to travel to the show. I am happy. This morning I told my assistant to politely decline any further invitations.

The show is embarrassing and @CNN should be ashamed of airing it.

“It is clearly not designed to address a news story ‘sharply’ or ‘intelligently’. Instead, it’s designed to generate viral clips to boost ratings, even if people hate watching them. I’m still amazed at the clip from those at the table who don’t know about the “Ferguson Effect,” which suggests that police gave up on enforcing laws in inner cities after the Ferguson riots. Abby Phillip herself wrote about it Washington Post and pretended to hear her speaking Aramaic Ryan Girdusky “I brought it up,” he argued, before questioning a paragraph from Tuesday evening:

Last night the round table was piling up again Scott Jennings because the panelists claimed Donald Trump wanted to use the American military to round up American citizens. Trump didn’t say that. His comments were about illegal immigrants. But even Abby Phillip, who regularly likes to correct conservative panelists including Scott Jennings, seemed completely confused by basic facts that never penetrate the left’s echo chamber. In fact, Abby Phillip tried to correct Scott Jennings again and was wrong again. She returned to Trump’s consideration of calling out the National Guard after the unrest in 2020, but that was something special Tom Cotton advocated in the New York Times that Trump actually didn’t do it. She then had the audacity to claim the credibility of the progressive panelist who claimed that Donald Trump wanted to send the military to hunt down American citizens, which he did not say. They were lawyers, after all.

“I’m sorry, but the show is a sign that CNN is drifting into the fever swamps of MSNBC. “I don’t want to be a part of it and the show’s existence makes me question the direction of the entire network as it struggles to find its footing,” Erickson concluded. “News Night discredits the entire network. I have made the editorial decision of my own radio show to stop broadcasting excerpts from the show because I do not want to give it any attention. I think the show is a cry for help from CNN and if they think this show is a good idea then they don’t need help. They need to be rebuilt. Paging John Malone.”

Phillip didn’t just put up with the criticism.

“@EWErickson I’m assuming you didn’t actually watch the show last night and there’s a lot to talk about in this mostly false tweet,” she replied. “But I’ll start with the simplest: Last night’s discussion was partly about whether Trump threatened to use the military to solve domestic problems (yes, involving US citizens). The answer is clearly yes: it is a Trump quote from 2020 about the racial justice protests. “If a city or state refuses to take the necessary measures to protect the lives and property of its residents, I will deploy the U.S. military and quickly resolve the problem for them.”

“You can argue that he didn’t do it, not that he didn’t threaten to do it. Take a deep breath. Calm down. What’s special about @ScottJenningsKY is that he’s willing to engage in conversation and debate. I’m sorry we can’t say the same about you. Have a nice day,” Phillip added.

@EWErickson I’m assuming you didn’t actually watch the show last night, and there’s a lot to talk about in this mostly false tweet. But I’ll start with the simplest: Part of the discussion last night was about whether Trump threatened to use the military to…

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) December 4, 2024

But Erickson remained unmoved.

“The problem here, Abby, is that you like to jump in and correct conservatives, who often aren’t wrong about what they said, but you’re less likely to do that with progressives. For example, look at the Ferguson effect, which you seemed confused about but had written about. Also last night today, you and your left-wing panelists wanted to stake out a position on Trump on the use of the military that had nothing to do with anything from 2020 and intentionally misrepresented the current controversy. “Furthermore, your use of the following quote distracts from Trump’s actions, which specifically involved not using the military,” he shot back, before saying again:

It’s not about whether I’m ready or not to engage in a debate. It’s that Scott Jennings is on the payroll and enjoying it and like you and CNN are trying to do that David Zazlav Happy, you decided to bring elements of MSNBC to a network that once prided itself on objectivity so that you could have a panel of progressives where you repeatedly used the credentials of left-wing panelists to try to correct conservatives.

I know you have to defend your show and your job, and it’s easy to defend yourself by saying, “Sorry, you just can’t debate like Scott,” but your show is no good. It is neither clever nor perceptive. It is pretentious and often deeply ignorant. And at least you don’t have to waste your producer’s time by continuing to try to get me on your show, which you’ve tried repeatedly.

“Again, I’m sorry you don’t want to come. “I’m still not sure why if you’re so confident in your views,” Phillip replied. “But still. The last thing I want to say about this: The claim made in the show about the Ferguson Effect was that it was responsible for more than 15,000 deaths of black men in 2020 (not whether the Ferguson Effect exists) . I invite you to substantiate this claim. I’ll wait…”

Again, I’m sorry you don’t want to come. I’m still not sure why if you’re so confident in your views. But still. The last thing I want to say about this: The claim made on the show about the Ferguson Effect was that it was responsible for more than 15,000 deaths of black men in 2020…

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) December 4, 2024

News Night has gained a reputation as one of the most heated cable news shows in recent days, with Phillip serving as host of many explosive segments.