'He doesn't say that!' CNN host cackles as conservative tries to defend Trump's promise

CNN's Audie Cornish was not buying what a conservative commentator was selling to justify President Donald Trump on Friday morning.

Anti-trans activist Terry Schilling proved unable to convince Cornish and a co-panelist, New York Times podcaster Lulu Garcia-Navarro, that Trump's promise of $5,000 for American voters was a savvy and necessary move.

"This is him absolutely trying to pull things out of theair in order to get people tocome and vote," Garcia-Navarro said. "We aresuffering a huge moment ofinflation — offering $5,000 to people is an inflationary move.It's what Republicans criticized Democrats for during thepandemic."

Cornish agreed and argued Trump's offer undercut GOP messaging on the national debt, as well.

"I hadjust started to hear Republicanssaying the fiscal hawks, theyrise like phoenixes every three to fiveyears, and they had just comeout of their caves and beenlike, did you know the nationaldebt is at 40 trillion?" Cornish said. "Asthey pop their heads out, Trumpjust literally steps on it,steps on the moment and goes,have I got a deal for you? It'lljust cost you $1.3 trillion."

That's when Schilling tried to defend Trump.

"The last threegenerations, both politicalparties have agreed on devaluingand debasing the currency," Schilling said. "At the same time, what wasincredibly cruel is we wereshipping all of our jobsoverseas at the same time.President Trump...he's saying, wegot to start to correct thiswrong here."

Cornish was dubious.

"Wait, wait, wait, that's – no," she said, laughing. "He doesn't say that! He says, 'I want to spend a trillion dollars.'"

Schilling then explained what he believed the president was trying to say.

"We haveto start making sure that...this K-shaped economy doesn'tkeep getting worse and worse," he said. "When you debasethe currency, theseredistribution programs becomenecessary to avoid that gettingmuch worse."

Cornish pounced on two of Schilling's words and turned them against him.

"Redistribution programs?" she said. "This is why people arealso being like, 'Hey, what's thesocialist vibe here? We're justgiving out money.'"

But Garcia-Navarro argued Cornish had given Trump too much credit by attributing his promise to a political philosophy.

"It's giving out moneyfor votes," she said. "It's not even, like,do something that actually usethat is useful."

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