CNN’s “NewsNight” descended into squabbling on Friday after a panelist was called out for echoing transphobic rhetoric in a heated post-election exchange.
Conservative pundit Shermichael Singleton drew the ire of other guests when he blamed Democrats’ support for transgender rights for Kamala Harris' loss to Donald Trump.
“I think there are a lot of families out there who don’t believe boys should play a girls' sport,” Singleton said.
“They’re not boys. I’m not going to listen to transphobia at this table,” commentator Jay Michaelson, a frequent critic of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policy, interjected. “They’re not boys. I’m not going to sit here and listen to that.
Host Abby Phillip attempted to get the conversation back on track.
.“I know that you understand that people have different views on this," she said to Singleton. "I think out of respect for Jay, let’s try to talk about this in a way that is respectful.”
The former Trump staffer moaned that he was being “targeted” when Philip asked him to rein in the misgendering before continuing his point.
“He should know that I’m not intending to be transphobic. The way that regular people interpret it, which is why those [anti-trans] ads were effective,” Singleton said before Michaelson cut in.
“It’s not ‘regular people.’ There’s no consensus that these are actually boys," he said. "This whole thing about trans girls is a canard. We’re talking about a tiny, tiny sliver of the population.”
Panels on the network have been tense in recent weeks, with one recent discussion of the war in Gaza devolving into chaos after a MAGA pundit joked that Muslim journalist Mehdi Hasan should share the fate of Hezbollah members killed in an exploding pager attack.
“I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” Ryan Girdusky said after Hasan called himself a supporter of the Palestinian people. Gidusky was removed from the panel and banned from future appearances by the network.
Watch the segment below:
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