CNN anchor Abby Phillip issued a blunt and direct rebuttal to a conservative commentator who defended a misleading claim made on her show about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. The dispute centres on a segment from the Tuesday, December 31, 2025, broadcast involving conservative panelist Scott Jennings.
The Controversial Claim and the Immediate Pushback
During the discussion, Scott Jennings asserted that Democratic Governor Tim Walz had labelled efforts to investigate an alleged $9 billion fraud in daycare facilities, including those serving Minnesota's Somali community, as "white supremacy." Jennings was referencing a speech Walz gave on December 23, 2025, where the governor defended his administration's handling of the scandal.
In that speech, Walz criticized the Trump administration's focus on the Somali community as racially motivated. He specifically cited a comment from Vice President JD Vance, who told a Turning Point USA audience, "You don’t have to apologize for being white anymore." Walz responded, "When you hear the vice president of the United States talk about 'Now white people won’t have to apologize for being white.' That’s never once happened in my whole damn life."
Jennings, however, omitted this crucial context. He presented Walz's criticism of Vance's rhetoric and the administration's targeting of immigrant communities as a statement that investigating fraud itself is white supremacy. Phillip and other panelists immediately corrected him on air.
Online Amplification and the Host's Fact-Check
Following the broadcast, Jennings posted a clipped video on social media platform X that showed the panel's reaction to his claim, followed by a clip of Walz saying "white supremacy"—but again, without the context of Vance's statement. This prompted conservative pundit Erick Erickson to suggest on Thursday, January 1, 2026, that CNN should fact-check Phillip's panel with Jennings' clips, implying Jennings was proven right.
Abby Phillip, who hosts the show, had a succinct and forceful response. She directly replied to Erickson's post, writing, "Give me a break." She then clarified the factual record: "He was not referring to the fraud investigations in that clip. He was talking about Trump and Vance denigrating the Somali community. [There's] plenty to criticize Walz for but he did not say that investigating fraud was akin to white supremacy."
Context and Aftermath
Despite the on-air correction and Phillip's online fact-check, the misleading narrative gained some traction in conservative circles. It is worth noting that a spokesperson for Governor Walz later told Fox News that the governor "has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities." This statement directly contradicts the implication that Walz opposes fraud probes.
The incident highlights the ongoing tensions in political media between selective quoting and full-context reporting. Phillip's direct intervention served as a real-time correction to a narrative she viewed as fundamentally inaccurate, underscoring the contentious nature of political discourse surrounding immigration, fraud, and racial rhetoric.
