Last night, I had the pleasure of joining CNN’s NewsNight With Abby Phillip.
In conservative media, the show is affectionately known as the Thunderdome, because it often descends into madness.
Some nights (last night was one of them) you end up in a five against one situation. It’s not easy to get a word in, but to me, it’s truly an honor to be given the opportunity to speak to an audience that fully disagrees with me and hates the agenda that I support. It forces me to craft my message in the most conciliatory way.
Obviously, I don’t always succeed! Sometimes other parts of my personality kick in, the part that wants to make the starkest, most poignant version of the case. But the goal for me is to convey what I believe to be true in a way most likely to be able to convince those who don’t already agree with me in such a polarized time, to try to find common ground. (Again, I am not always able to pull this off!)
I was especially honored to join the show last night to discuss the truly tragic killing of Alex Pretti.
From everything I have heard, Alex Pretti seems like he was a wonderful, kind man, a man who was maligned by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, among others, in the immediate aftermath of his killing.
But I don’t believe he was murdered. It was a bad shoot that I think was legally defensible, considering the circumstances. I would like to know more. I would like to see the bodycam footage, and Pretti’s own footage.
I was also struck to see the Democrats embrace the Second Amendment—and continue to believe that polling reflects the will of most Americans for mass deportations, despite the chaos in Minneapolis. I’m glad the President has chosen to take down the temperature.
Here are some clips from the show last night in which I made these points.
