A Texas Republican‘s attempt to bash CNN backfired spectacularly when Kaitlan Collins hit him with a devastating supercut smacking down his claims live on air.
Brian Harrison, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives representing District 10, joined Collins on her nightly show, “The Source,” to discuss his state’s GOP plan to redistrict congressional districts mid-decade to boost the party’s chances of clinging on to its narrow majority next year.
“Do you have a problem if — typically this only happens after the census comes out — other states, Democrat-run states, change this in the middle of the decade as well?” Collins asked Harrison.
Harrison replied that it’s the Democrats’ “prerogative to do it,” then tried to take a shot at news outlets over their coverage of Democrats doing exactly that.
“I do have to point out, I don’t know of any major media, CNN included, that dragged [Illinois Gov. J.B.] Pritzker on TV and asked him to justify the gerrymandering in his state or in California, where I’m looking at it right now, Republicans have 40% of the vote of the vote in California, but they only give 17% of their seats to Republicans. Same thing in New York,” he insisted. “These are more gerrymandered than anything we’re contemplating down here in the state of Texas!”
Collins wasn’t having any of it, noting she heard him repeat the claim earlier in the day that news outlets weren’t covering Democratic gerrymandering. She hit him with a devastating supercut of CNN doing just that.
“We’ve written many articles about it, and also it’s been talked about on TV. Listen to this,” she shot back, as he chuckled.
Collins first played a clip of anchor Anderson Cooper in December 2021, grilling former Attorney General Eric Holder about Democratic gerrymandering in Illinois. She also played a clip of her network covering Illinois’ attempt in November 2011, and again in October of that year, suggesting that then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s (R-IL) decision not to seek re-election may have been largely due to his district being gerrymandered. placed him in the same district as another Republican incumbent, Rep. Darin LaHood.
“So I just want to be clear, we have covered it when Democrats gerrymander as well, sir,” she fired back at Harrison.
Harrison laughed after watching the clips.
“Well, Kaitlan, I’ve got to tell you, I’m incredibly flattered by the amount of time CNN must’ve spent fact-checking what I said earlier to come up with those clips,” he retorted.
Even so, he doubled down rather than back down.
“But if those are the best clips you can find, then my point stands, and I was proven correct, because at no point was he asked to justify those maps,” Harrison replied.