What To Know
- John Berman, filling in for Abby Phillip on CNN NewsNight, struggled to maintain order as panelists erupted into a heated shouting match over accusations against Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
- The conflict began when Jesse Arm labeled El-Sayed as an extremist, prompting strong pushback from Niall Stanage and Tara Setmayer.
- Berman repeatedly intervened to restore the peace, warning panelists to speak one at a time and threatening to go to break as the argument escalated.
John Berman had his work cut out for him while filling in for Abby Phillip on the August 10 episode of CNN NewsNight. The panelists broke out into a screaming match, with Berman attempting to interrupt to calm things down.
It began when Jesse Arm, vice president of external affairs at the Manhattan Institute, claimed that Abdul El-Sayed, a 2026 Senate candidate from Michigan, is an “Islamist sympathetic, communist adjacent, hard-line, extremist radical, and there’s no place for him in American public life.” He added, “A lot of Democrats believe so as well. A lot of Haley Stevens supporters believe so, as well.”
The Hill‘s Niall Stanage responded, “Words like adjacent and sympathizer are doing a lot of work there to try to smear a candidate with beliefs that he does not actually hold.” This led Arm to get heated, directing his anger at Stanage as he said, “I am smearing the candidate 100%.”
When Stanage replied, “The point here is that, for example, President [Donald] Trump describing him as a jihadist. There is nothing in his record that suggests he is jihad.” Arm and Stanage began yelling over each other, with Arm eventually sneaking in, “You’re not contending with reality that he is out there defending the actions of religious extremists who carry out terrorism in his name. I just got done condemning stupid Republicans that are making stupid comments about muslims. My boss is muslim. I work at the leading public policy think tank…”
Tara Setmayer then jumped in to call out Arm for getting “very animated” and “upset” about El-Sayed’s comments, but not doing the same when Donald Trump spews anti-Islam rhetoric. “Well, you’ll have to forgive me, Donald Trump didn’t try to ram an explosive-laden truck into a synagogue with 140 preschoolers in it in my hometown. That’s the guy Abdul El-Sayed was excusing,” Arm said.
As the voices began rising, Berman jumped in to scold, “One at a time, one at a time!” Setmayer and Arm continued to go at it, which prompted Berman to tell them, “Gus, guys, guys, we’re going to do one at a time, or we’re going to go to break here.”
He then had to tell Arm to “let [Setmayer] finish” as he interrupted her once again. “You guys don’t want to listen because you’re hypocrites and you try to over-talk me because you don’t want to hear the truth about the fact that you are not willing to call Donald Trump out the exact same way,” Setmayer continued. Berman then had to, again, warn everyone, “We’re going to go around the table,” as Arm tried to interject.
“I’m going to yield my time back to Tara so I can hear what Donald Trump said about Somalis’ religion,” Arm eventually got out, to which Setmayer sarcastically replied, “Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate you finally shutting up so I can actually get a sentence out. I’m not going to give you credit for being quiet so I can finish.”
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, Weekdays, 10/9c, CNN