TMZ Lib Tries to Corner Scott Jennings with Yes-No Question, Gets Furious When Jennings Flips It on Its Head

It was sup­posed to be a sim­ple yes-or-no ques­tion — at least, that’s what for­mer TMZ host and cur­rent pod­cast­er Van Lath­an thought when he chal­lenged con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor Scott Jen­nings on CNN this week­end. What he didn’t expect was for Jen­nings to dis­man­tle the ques­tion entire­ly and flip the argu­ment on its head.

The exchange took place dur­ing a CNN round­table dis­cussing recent Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) raids in Chica­go, where some eye­wit­ness­es claimed that “chil­dren were being zip-tied and pulled from apart­ments.” Host Abby Phillip ref­er­enced those reports, spark­ing an emo­tion­al response from Lath­an — and a sharp dose of real­i­ty from Jen­nings.

Jen­nings point­ed out that the raids were tar­get­ing Tren de Aragua, a vio­lent transna­tion­al gang respon­si­ble for traf­fick­ing, extor­tion, and mur­der across the Amer­i­c­as. “If the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment knows there is a nest of Tren de Aragua in a city like Chica­go,” he said, “they have a respon­si­bil­i­ty — they have an oblig­a­tion — to go get them.”

That wasn’t good enough for Lath­an. Accus­ing law enforce­ment of over­reach, he fired back:

“What I’m ask­ing you is this — do you think that chil­dren should have been zip tied and pulled out of an apart­ment com­plex and trau­ma­tized like that? Yes or no?”

Jen­nings, ever calm, refused to take the bait.

“I don’t think chil­dren should be put in harm’s way by transna­tion­al gangs,” he replied.

Lath­an pushed again:

“Just answer the ques­tion, yes or no?”

Jen­nings didn’t budge.

“I reject the premise of your ques­tion,” he said. “The gov­ern­ment isn’t putting chil­dren in harm’s way. Tren de Aragua is. They’re the ones endan­ger­ing chil­dren.”

That’s when the tone in the room shift­ed. Lath­an dou­bled down, insist­ing that Amer­i­ca had “a respon­si­bil­i­ty for how we treat peo­ple.” Jen­nings calm­ly shot back:

“Should chil­dren be allowed to live in an apart­ment build­ing with Tren de Aragua? Should entire neigh­bor­hoods have to tol­er­ate that because these gangs hide behind chil­dren?”

It was a ques­tion that Lath­an couldn’t — or wouldn’t — answer.

Polit­i­cal strate­gist Ash­ley Alli­son even­tu­al­ly jumped in, try­ing to sug­gest that law enforce­ment shouldn’t act “like gangs” them­selves. But by then, Jen­nings had already made the essen­tial point: enforc­ing the law isn’t cru­el­ty — it’s pro­tec­tion.

This kind of exchange per­fect­ly cap­tures the broad­er divide in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics right now. One side sees account­abil­i­ty and bor­der enforce­ment as nec­es­sary to keep com­mu­ni­ties safe; the oth­er frames it as cru­el­ty when­ev­er the con­se­quences of ille­gal activ­i­ty affect fam­i­lies. Jen­nings’ refusal to play along with a false bina­ry — “Do you want kids in zip ties or not?” — exposed that con­tra­dic­tion clear­ly.

No one wants to see chil­dren caught in the mid­dle. But pre­tend­ing that vio­lent gangs and ille­gal net­works can oper­ate unchecked sim­ply to avoid uncom­fort­able optics helps no one — least of all the kids them­selves.

It’s a les­son many Amer­i­cans already under­stand. That’s why vot­ers chose tougher bor­der enforce­ment and stronger immi­gra­tion poli­cies in the last elec­tion — and why voic­es like Scott Jen­nings’ con­tin­ue to res­onate.