Brian Stelter Applauds Fox News Host For Grilling Sarah Sanders: ‘Thank You, Chris Wallace!’
Hours after Fox News’ Chris Wallace repeatedly challenged and fact-checked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders over her misleading statistics and talking points related to security at the U.S.-Mexico border and terrorism, CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter offered up some unequivocal praise for the veteran journalist.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday this morning, Sanders found herself cornered when she attempted to push specious claims that a border wall is needed to help stop the flow of terrorists through the southern border. After Sanders said “we know that roughly nearly 4,000 known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally and we know that our most vulnerable point of entry is the southern border,” Wallace noted he had boned up on the numbers she was spouting.
“I know the statistic, I didn’t know if you were going to use it, but I studied up on this,” he told her. “Do you know what those 4,000 people come where they are captured? Airports…The State Department says there hasn’t been any terrorists found coming across the southern border.”
Wallace also pushed back on the notion that Homeland Security had stopped thousands of potential terrorists from entering the country, noting that “special interest aliens are just people who have come from countries that have ever produced a terrorist, they’re not terrorists themselves.”
During a panel discussion on today’s broadcast of CNN’s Reliable Sources, Stelter brought up Wallace’s segment, pointing out how Sanders was hyping threats to border security to defend Trump potentially using emergency powers to fund and build a wall and noting Wallace’s response.
“All I want to say is thank you, Chris Wallace,” Stelter exclaimed after playing the clip.
“God bless Chris Wallace,” New York Times columnist Frank Bruni added before saying the administration is “knowingly lying in the service of their political goal.”
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
