A CNN NewsNight panel went so badly off the rails that the stand-in host threatened to pull the plug twice.
John Berman, standing in for Abby Phillip, had his work cut out with perhaps the shoutiest panel in months when he took the chair on Monday evening.
Jesse Arm, the vice president of external affairs at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, kicked off the carnage by saying that U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is “an Islamist sympathetic, communist adjacent, hard line, extremist radical, and there’s no place for him in American public life.”
He was adopting the playbook of President Donald Trump and his cronies who are clearly rattled by the Michigan Democrat’s narrow primary win this week.
Irish journalist Niall Stanage from The Hill pushed back against Arm on the show, saying that the candidate doesn’t harbor those views.
“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,” he said, perhaps foolishly expecting Arm to be somewhat sensible in his response.
Alas, a shouting Arm said that he was “100 percent” smearing the candidate.
Stanage, the calmer of the two, continued to try to unearth some common sense despite his fellow panelist’s interruptions. “The point here is that, for example, President Trump describing him as a jihadist…there is nothing in his record that suggests he is a jihadist,” Stanage said.
Arm kept trying to interrupt, but over the din, Stanage was heard calling this “an obvious dog whistle to religious prejudice… to bigots who don’t want to elect a Muslim or an Arab.”
This made Arm literally shriek. “No! It’s a prejudice toward Islamism,” he squealed.
Olivia Setmayer is the co-founder and CEO of The Seneca Project, a bipartisan superPAC that was dedicated to mobilizing moderate women in support of Kamala Harris’ election campaign in 2024. She is also a contributor to ABC News and former GOP communications director on Capitol Hill.
She jumped in to ask Arm to give the same “smoke” to Trump for his anti-islam rhetoric. This created a cross-talk bonanza.
“You got very animated. You got very animated. You’re very upset. But you are not that upset when Donald Trump does it,” she told Arm.
“Guys, guys guys, guys, guys. I’m gonna, we’re gonna do one at a time. Or else, we’re gonna go to break here,” Berman was forced to interject as the two argued in harsh tones.
At one point, Setmayer sarcastically thanked a ranting Arm for “shutting up so I can actually get a sentence out.”
She seemed to give up, yielding her time and causing Arm to laugh.
The segment moved on, but Arm still wanted to be the center of attention. Stanage and conservative radio host and commentator Jason Rantz debated over Abdul El-Sayed talking about campaign spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
“It always comes back to the Jews,” Rantz said.
“He brings up AIPAC because they support the most right-wing government…” Stanage contended, with Rantz and Arm disagreeing in arm-waving fashion. It was unclear what the Irishman said because of the shouting, but the word “sociopaths” was heard.
This caused Arm to turn teenager. “Dude, chill, we understand that Ireland cares a lot about Palestine,” he said, referencing Ireland’s widespread support.
The two men, Stanage and Arm, then began a finger-pointing match with Berman being forced to step in again with a 10-second warning.
“Just let him talk,” he demanded of Arm, allowing Stanage to finish a sentence for the first time in the segment.
The journalist responded to Arm again after the show. “It’s true, Ireland does care a lot about Palestine. So do a lot of other people,” he wrote on X, adding in a reply to a follower that he is “always up for a good rambunctious discussion.”
