Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds accused CNN host John Berman Thursday of misleading his viewers on Republican nominee Donald Trump’s statements about women during a testy exchange.
Berman played an edited, trimmed down clip of Trump saying he will protect women “whether they like it or not” in reference to many women falling victim to rape and murder as a result of the border crisis. Donalds said the clip is “grossly inaccurate” and out of context, stating that Trump is promising to protect women from the various tragedies that have taken place as a result of the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“John, that is grossly inaccurate what you just played. Play the full clip. Play it in its context,” Donalds said. “He’s talking about the tragedy at our southern border that led to the death of Jocelyn Nungaray. Jocelyn’s mother endorsed Donald Trump because she fully believes that if Donald Trump was president, her daughter would be alive. And so what he was talking about, I’m gonna protect women, I’m gonna protect children,’ and he was really telling a joke about how some of the staff said ‘no, no, don’t say you’ll protect women because they’ll take it out of context.’ Obviously, what CNN is doing right now, is taking it out of context.”
“No, no, no, you have the exact right context here, congressman,” Berman replied. “Congressman, you just explained the exact right context was with Donald Trump’s story was telling people how people close to him, his advisers were telling him not to use that type of language to say ‘I’m going to be your protector.’”
The CNN host pointed to former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticizing the Trump campaign for appealing to male voters and not sending a message that will win over women.
“John, you need to stop,” Donalds said.
“So you’re telling me there’s no concern from Nikki Haley or as clearly as Donald Trump said, from people close to him in his campaign, about the type of language that he’s using,” Berman said.
Donalds then named 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley and 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who all mercilessly died at the hands of illegal immigrants under the Biden-Harris administration.
“Donald Trump is going to protect women in our country. He is going to protect children in our country,” the congressman said. Under Kamala Harris, we have lost 350,000 children in the United States. We’ve lost them, John, talk about that. What I will tell you is once again, you’re gonna clip 5 seconds out of an hour speech and not provide context. This is why the American people frankly are frustrated with media because you guys play games, you take things out of context, you don’t explain them clearly, and you want to get caught up in some antics.
“The heart of what Donald Trump said, very clearly is, he’s gonna protect the women of our country because Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have refused to protect the women of our country and a president should protect women and all Americans and that’s what he’s gonna do,” Donalds continued.
The former president said during a Wednesday rally in Wisconsin that his advisers believed women would not like him promising that he would protect them, leading him to say at the rally that he will protect women anyways if he is reelected.
Federal immigration law under the Biden-Harris administration allows the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “parole” migrants instead of detaining them for “humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,” which has been challenged by many Republican-led states. Illegal encounters exceeded 2 million in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, largely surpassing encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border during the Trump administration, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
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