'Acknowledge the obvious!’: Kayleigh McEnany denies Trump immigration flip-flop as CNN panel howls
Kayleigh McEnany ran afoul of her fellow CNN panelists on Wednesday when she refused to admit that Donald Trump has been signaling a change in his anti-immigrant position.
"Allegedly in this town hall tonight with [Sean] Hannity he says, 'I'm listening to voters. Voters are telling me that they think this position is too hard,'" McEnany told host Anderson Cooper. "And he's listening to voters."
"So why not just say, 'Yes, it's a change of policy?'" Cooper asked. "Rationally speaking, if you said 11 million gotta leave and now you're longer saying that, in fact the policy you have means means those haven't broken any laws don't have to leave."
"I'm quoting Donald Trump right now," she insisted. "He said, 'I'm listening to voters. They're telling me my position is too hard.'"
Trump said on Tuesday he was opening to a "softening" of his immigration policies, which he first pitched on the idea of building a wall between the US and Mexico, while also accusing the latter country of sending "criminals" and "racists" and promising to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the US.
Anti-Trump conservative Tara Setmayer seemed to be especially annoyed with McEnany, to the point that she said, "This is the frustrating part about Donald Trump and his supporters. Just acknowledge the obvious. This is a complete departure from what he campaigned on."
Shortly afterwards, McEnany interrupted Setmayer by telling her, "This isn't a monologue on this program."
"You've got some nerve," Setmayer shot back.
Later, when McEnany was accusing Hillary Clinton of causing the shooting death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant, Setmayer returned the favor.
"Since we don't do monologues on the show, I'm going to respond to you," Setmayer told her. "We should have a debate over the immigration policy the Democrats put forward. Yes, it's awful. Yes, we need talk about border security. All those things are true. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has lost credibility on this issue to people are sane because he does things like what did he tonight -- calling Hillary Clinton a bigot."
Watch the discussion, as aired on Wednesday, below.