CBS News’ Margaret Brennan got absolutely toasted online after clips from her interview with Vice President JD Vance went viral, particularly for a moment in which she lost her cool and her composure when bickering with the Vice President about immigration policy and vetting migrants. She snapped about vetting Vance delivered an epic quote.
The spat began over birthright citizenship, with Brennan saying, “There are five legal challenges already to one of the other immigration actions, the order on birthright citizenship. A federal judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, who I think you’d agree, has some conservative credentials paused the order to end birthright citizenship, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” How do you reconcile this challenge to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution?”
Vance tried to respond, starting to tell her, “So, I obviously disagree with that judge and these things- some of them will be litigated. That’s the nature of our constitutional system. But here’s the basic idea of President Trump’s view on this. If you are a lawful permanent resident or a legal immigrant who plans to stay, your children, of course, should become American citizens. But let’s say you’re the child of an ambassador, you don’t become–” She got angry and cut him off, snapping, “-but that’s not part of it!”
Then, after a testy, back and forth, Vance told her, “But we’re saying that that carve out should apply to anybody who doesn’t plan to stay here. If you come here on vacation and you have a baby in an American hospital, that baby doesn’t become an American citizen. If you’re an illegal alien and you come here temporarily, hopefully, your child does not become an ille- American citizen by virtue of just having been born on American soil. It’s a very basic principle in American immigration law, that if you want to become an American citizen, and you’ve done it the right way, and the American people in their collective wisdom have welcomed you into our national community, then you become a citizen. But temporary residents, people who come in here, whether legally or illegally, and don’t plan to stay, their children shouldn’t become American citizens. I don’t know any country that does that, or why we would be different.”
That started another argument, with Brennan telling Vance, “Well, this is a country founded by immigrants.” Vance tried to respond, telling her that America was founded by settlers, not immigrants. But she cut him off and kept cutting him off, with the conversation eventually getting to the matter of refugees. Brennan said, “I want to ask you about refugee admissions, which were just suspended by the president. That has nothing to do with the U.S. border. Refugee screening takes 18 to 24 months to go through. They are heavily vetted. Left literally at the airport this week were thousands of Afghans who- some of whom had worked with the United States government and were promised to come here. When you talked to us in August, you said, “I don’t think we should abandon anybody who’s been properly vetted and helped us.” Do you stand by that?”
Vance told her, “Well, Margaret, I don’t agree that all these immigrants, or all these refugees, have been properly vetted. In fact, we know that there are cases of people who allegedly were properly vetted and then were literally planning terrorist attacks in our country. That happened during the campaign if you may remember. So clearly, not all of these foreign nationals have been properly vetted–” Once again Brennan cut Vance off and kept interrupting him.
Eventually, she said, “These people are vetted. These people are vetted,” to which Vance responded by saying, “Just like the guy who planned a terrorist attack in Oklahoma a few months ago? He was allegedly properly vetted, and many people in the media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted. Clearly he wasn’t.” That’s when Vance brought down the hammer, saying, “I don’t want my children to share a neighborhood with people who are not properly vetted, and because I don’t want it for my kids, I’m not going to force any other American citizens kids to do that either.”
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Brennan, really losing her composure at that point, snapped, “No. And that was a very particular case. It wasn’t clear if he was radicalized when he got here or while he was living here, but–” Vance told her, “I don’t really care, Margaret. I don’t want that person in my country, and I think most Americans agree with me.” Watch him here:
NEW: JD Vance continuously shuts down CBS News’ Margaret Brennan after she kept arguing in favor of illegal immigration.
I could watch this all day.
Vance: We absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country.
Brennan: These people are vetted.
Vance:… pic.twitter.com/mZSxg6dwyz
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 26, 2025
Brennan was hammered for losing her cool. For example, in response to one post about Brennan trying to pressure Vance into agreeing with her, a commenter said, “God, I’ve really grown to find Margaret Brennan unbearable to watch. 10 years ago I actually liked her (and thought she was rather good looking as well), but as time went on she’s gotten ever-more biased and argumentative, with branding/vanity photos of her plastered on screen.”
Similarly, in response to another post about the exchange over immigration and vetting supposed refugees, one commenter noted that Brennan’s freak out was a symbol of why the media is so exhausting, saying, “Why do these reporters always ally with the potentiality of criminality and harm instead of just supporting Americans and having a safe country? It’s so exhausting. Kudos to Vance.”
On that same post, another commenter noted that Brennan in her freak out had acted exactly like an activist, saying, “A journalist asks genuine questions and is curious about the thoughts of the person they’re interviewing. An activist pushes a narrative and tries to bully and do a “getcha”. We can easily see which one Margaret is.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video