What began as a routine segment on CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip Wednesday quickly turned into a combative on-air meltdown, with personal attacks, racial tensions, and an explosive exchange between The View host Ana Navarro and CNN contributor Shermichael Singleton.
The debate centered on President Donald Trump’s controversial deportation of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, accused by Trump of being an MS-13 gang member. The segment went off the rails when Navarro, defending migrants, made a clumsy comparison that invoked slavery, drawing swift and sharp rebuke from Singleton.
“There’s a hell of a lot of people, other than the Black people who were brought here as slaves, who came to this country illegally,” Navarro began, before Singleton cut in, “They are not the same as Black people who were brought here against our will,” he snapped.
What followed was several minutes of back-and-forth that moderator Abby Phillip struggled to contain.
“No, he purposely misheard it,” Navarro jabbed.
“I purposely misheard? So now you’re in my brain?” Singleton fired back.
“That’s right. I’m Latino. And my people are being racially profiled,” Navarro retorted.
“Great. Last time I checked, I’m Black. You’re not,” Singleton said, growing visibly frustrated.
Phillip’s repeated attempts to de-escalate the tension fell flat as the shouting continued off-camera even as the segment ended.
But the drama didn’t stop there.
The conversation heated up again over Trump’s claim that Abrego Garcia had MS-13 tattoos—something Navarro challenged.
“Are you saying the Photoshop is true?” she asked Scott Jennings, who had argued that Democrats were committing political suicide by defending someone “affiliated with a transnational terrorist organization.”
Jennings doubled down:
“He was elected to protect us from MS-13. That’s what he’s doing.”
Navarro pushed back hard, saying, “What Trump said yesterday was an absolute lie.”
The segment also featured CNN columnist Raul Reyes, who cited polling that showed “54% of Americans want Mr Abrego Garcia back.” Jennings dismissed the claim amid crosstalk and reminded the panel that Trump was elected to crack down on illegal immigration.
“We let 20 million people into the country, and now we can’t deport someone because we have to go through ‘years of paperwork’?” he asked.
The panel’s implosion, complete with visible tension, racial identity arguments, and fierce ideological division, reflected the broader national debate on immigration in the Trump era. And it was all caught live on CNN.
