'Let's pause for a second': CNN host scolds MAGA pundit over wild swerve off-topic

CNN's Audie Cornish tried to rein in a MAGA pundit after he derailed a political debate with his own personal obsession.

Arch-conservative billionaire Rick Jackson defeated Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday, and Cornish showed "CNN This Morning" panelists a campaign ad Jackson aired that showed him warning undocumented migrants who commit violent crimes that they would be "deported or departed."

"Set aside the death threat atthe end of that," Cornish said. "I don't know ifthere's a Mongolian humantrafficking ring going on, butwhat I hear is culture war. Itwas not gas prices, it was notaffordability – it wasn't any ofthose things. Is thereturn of a culture warargument a weakness for Democrats?"

Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright opened up the discussion, saying he wasn't sure whether changing the subject from the economy to culture war issues would hurt Democrats in the midterms.

"Ithink the Republican primarycontests have been about who canbe most loyal or who can wrap their arms most around Donald Trump," Seawright said. "I think on the Democraticside, it has been a generationaldivide and ideologicalconversation, and I think bothof those things will lookdifferent in a general election.What I will tell you is I thinkthe ice is melting in the Donald Trump cup. I think he's had achilling effect on the Republican primaries. But we sawin Iowa, we saw in Georgia."

Cornish interrupted to ask whether that dynamic was why Republicans were falling back on culture war topics.

"Theircandidates would turn to thosekinds of messages that doresonate instead of focusing on, 'Here's what Trump did, this isa referendum on him – Let's havea fight about the Iran war,'" she said. "Whatthey're saying is, 'Hey,remember how you hate thosepeople and that people and thesepeople shouldn't come over theborder – we should go back tothat conversation.'"

Seawright agreed that GOP candidates couldn't run away from Trump's unpopular economy, and voters have consistently said they're unhappy with affordability and fuel costs, and anti-trans crusader Terry Schilling jumped in with an illustration of the culture war obsessions driving conservative politics.

"Here's where it getschallenging for for your party,Antjuan, is you guys are goingto have a really hard timearguing about affordability whenyou can't get a single Democratin the House or the Senate tovote against taxpayer-funded sexchange procedures, sex rejectionprocedures," Schilling said. "These procedures are hundredsof thousands of dollars."

Schilling and Seawright talked over one another as the Democrat argued that Americans broadly rejected Trump's economic policies and were concerned about affordability, while the right-wing activist insisted that rejecting LGBTQ rights was more important to voters.

"Let's pause for a second," Cornish interjected, ushering the segment into a commercial break. "Becausewe weren't talking about transhealth care, and I feel likethat we're going on a journeyhere, Terry. So let's let'sjourney back to the news todayafter the break."

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