A pair of CNN panelists clashed Wednesday morning over President Donald Trump's deployments of National Guard troops in Democratic-led cities — and the debacle ended with the conservative cornered and the liberal laughing.
Troops will continue patrolling in Washington, D.C., through the end of the 80-year-old president's second term, as Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard said they were working toward a goal of "zero crime" in the nation's capital, and anti-trans activist Terry Schilling told "CNN This Morning" he agreed with the mission.
"I think it would be a totally different question if D.C. wasn't a failed city," Schilling said. "They want statehood ... [but] there are hundreds of shootings in the city. It's down since the National Guard was deployed."
Host Audie Cornish presented crime data from the year to date showing homicides were down 35 percent, motor vehicle theft down 53 percent, robbery down 16 percent, but violent crime was up 3 percent, and Cornish wondered at what point the National Guard could consider its mission complete.
"I don't know what's included in the violent crime, but murder being down by 30 percent, car thefts being down by 52 percent – sounds great to me," Schilling said, and Cornish repeated her question. "I don't – as soon as D.C. can show that they can operate without the National Guard, I think that would be great."
"But let's be honest, it was a dangerous city," Schilling added. "Union Station was an absolute mess. You'd get approached by homeless person after homeless person, [it] reeked of weed. I just got back from New York last week. It was clean, it was open. I didn't get harassed by anyone."
Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright pounced on those claims.
"So you're saying [Mayor Zohran] Mamdani is doing a good job?" Seawright said, chuckling. "Is that what you're trying to say?"
"No, no, no," Schilling protested, as Seawright burst into laughter — then set the record straight as he saw it.
"What the president has done has been intentional about trying to identify cities, predominantly with higher African American populations or cities run by Black mayors, as if they're crime-infested, they're bad, and they're the worst in America," he said.
"That's the wrong narrative to project."
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