CNN ‘News Night’ pundit Scott Jennings (YouTube/ScreenGrab)
CNN host Abby Phillip issued a swift fact check against conservative podcaster Eric Erickson on X Thursday.
Erickson claimed that conservative ally Scott Jennings "was right the whole time."
The incident refers to a Jennings appearance where the CNN panel debated a Republican Party-produced sting video that attempts to claim Somali-run childcare facilities in Minneapolis are committing fraud. The video went viral and the federal government has stopped hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to many of the facilities, leaving parents desperate during the holiday break. Republicans are blaming Democratic officials, saying they turned a blind-eye to corruption.
Jennings alleged on the panel that Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) is calling any attempt to investigate the facilities “white supremacy."
The CNN panel stepped in to fact-check Jennings.
Jennings then posted his own video of his comments and a short excerpt of Walz's speech that cuts the context of his commentary.
Erickson reposted it on X, saying, "CNN needs to start each Scott Jennings appearance with a fact check where Scott said something previously, Abby and the panel insisted it was not so, and we start the next show with the video showing Scott was right the whole time."
But Phillip posted her own fact-check.
"Give me a break Eric. He was not referring to the fraud investigations in that clip. He was talking about Trump and Vance denigrating the Somali community. There plenty to criticize Walz for but he did not say that investigating fraud was akin to white supremacy."
In a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump claimed, “Lowlifes like this can only be a liability to our Country’s greatness. Send them back from where they came, Somalia, perhaps the worst, and most corrupt, country on earth,” Trump said. He also called Walz was a “crooked governor.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday posted on X that 98 individuals have been charged thus far and 60 had been found guilty. She claimed 85 of the 98 were "of Somali descent."
A fact-check revealed Bondi meant 89 percent of those charged in the Feeding Our Future case are Somali Americans, according to reporting from Associated Press.
Of the 98 individuals Bondi cited, a fact-check from The Guardian revealed that the fraud was already known under President Joe Biden's administration and were part of a Justice Department investigation before Trump was elected.
Feeding Our Future,was raided by the FBI in 2022, under the Biden administration. The investigation into the organization also began under Biden in Feb. 2021, a Minnesota Star Tribune report detailed. The first 48 people were indicted in Nov. 2022, TwinCities.com reported. The state first began to suspected fraud in 2019 and formally began the investigation in 2020 and grants were denied to the group, the report continued. The first person sentenced also happened under Biden in Oct. 2024. By that month, Minnesota Public Radio reported that federal indictments reached 70. The "ring leader," Aimee Bock, is white.
In October, Walz began a third-party audit of funds to 14 other programs.
“This is Trump’s long game,” Walz wrote Tuesday on X. “We’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It’s a serious issue – but this has been his plan all along. He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”