CNN anchor Kasie Hunt was unable to hide her shock after playing a clip of President Donald Trump’s incoming border czar threatening to “jail” Denver’s Democrat mayor.
On CNN’s “This Morning,” the show played a clip of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston discussing his plans to resist Trump’s efforts to deport illegal aliens across the country.
However, incoming border czar Tom Homan has warned that anybody who interferes with the federal plans will be committing a felony and will be arrested.
CNN also played a clip of Homan asserting that he will “jail” Johnston if he stands in the Trump administration’s way.
Johnston had said himself he was willing to be arrested for his defiant stance.
“Me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing,” Homan said.
“He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”
After the clip ended and the camera panned back to Hunt, she appeared visibly stunned by Homan’s threat.
Hunt then described the rhetoric as “more extreme” than that on the Trump campaign trail.
“That has some significant and more extreme echoes than some of what we heard from the Trump campaign on the trail,” Hunt said to her CNN panel.
The panel included ex-Trump White House communications director Mike Dubke and Democrat operative Hyma Moore.
In a recent interview, Johnston told 9News that he would be willing to go to jail to stand up against any “illegal or immoral” deportation strategy that the second Trump administration would deploy.
Trump’s plans seek to reduce the illegal alien population in Colorado’s capital city.
“Yeah, I’m not afraid of that, and I’m also not seeking that,” Johnston said in response to the jail question.
“I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people how to solve hard problems,” he added.
He later noted that he does support limited deportations for those convicted of “serious crimes.”
In a recent interview with Fox News, Homan — who was nominated for border czar in early November — responded to the mayor’s comments.
Homan accused Johnston of potentially “breaking the law” and declaring he’d arrest Johnston if he persisted.
“You are absolutely breaking the law,” Homan told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity.
“All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S. and he would see he’s breaking the law.
“But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing.
“He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”
Hunt played the clips of Johnston and Homan back-to-back and grew wide-eyed after hearing the border czar nominee’s words.
She then exhaled audibly, adding a concerned, “Oooooof.”
Hunt then asked Dubke to comment on Homan’s rhetoric.
The former Trump official argued it was an effective part of Trump’s first-term immigration strategy.
“There are several stages to kind of arresting — and I should choose a different word — but arresting immigration at the border, one of which that worked incredibly well in the early days of the first Trump administration was the rhetoric,” he said.
“So Tom Homan’s very strong language is going to restrict and impede the number of people that are actually flooding the border.”
“You’re saying it‘s going to discourage people from trying to come?” Hunt asked.
“Totally discourage that,” Dubke replied.
“That is super important and that is something we saw — when the Biden administration came in, there was a flood for a reason.
“The rhetoric was toned down.”
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