CNN anchor Abby Phillip shut down MAGA panelist Scott Jennings after he mocked a hijab on air while discussing a high-profile Minneapolis fraud investigation.
The city’s Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, 46, briefly donned a headscarf and urged support for Somali-owned businesses while visiting Karmel Mall in a video released by Somali TV of Minnesota on Thursday. Republicans, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, criticized it as a “stunt,” while Flanagan’s spokesperson told the New York Post she “briefly wore it out of respect.”
As the panel sparred during CNN NewsNight on Monday night over the political storm in Minnesota, Jennings, 48, claimed Democrats were “pandering” to the Somali community.
“They got the lieutenant governor up there dressed like The Handmaid’s Tale,” the Republican political strategist said, likening Flanagan’s outfit to the red cloaks and white bonnets from the dystopian Hulu series.
An outraged Phillip, 37, cut off Jennings, saying she did not think it would be acceptable to talk that way about “Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn,” and accusing him of using a pop-culture jab to “denigrate the religion of a group of people.”
“So don’t. Just don’t do it,” Phillip snapped.
The CNN discussion centered on a wave of fraud allegations that federal authorities say they are intensifying resources to investigate. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security said they are “surging” efforts around the suspected misuse of federal funds at childcare centers after conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a widely shared video on Dec. 26 airing such allegations.
The spike in interest in the case is part of a broader Minnesota fraud investigation. Federal prosecutors first filed sweeping charges in September 2022 in the Feeding Our Future case, alleging a $250 million scheme exploiting a federally funded child nutrition program.
That case has expanded through multiple rounds of indictments and trials, and it’s become a shorthand in partisan fights over oversight and social-service spending.
Democrats and some community figures have argued that the revived focus is being amplified as political ammunition amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and focus on Somalis in the city—whom the president has been deeply disparaging towards. Republicans have rejected that claim as a deflection.
The Daily Beast has contacted Jennings for comment.
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