UNHINGED Former MSNBC Host Compares Alligator Alcatraz to Auschwitz

July 9th, 2025 1:50 PM

Former MSNBC host Tiffany Cross delivered an unhinged rant on CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, also known as “Thunderdome” around these parts, wherein she compared ICE detention facilities to concentration camps. To be more precise, she was ALLOWED to deliver her rant with no pushback whatsoever. 

Watch the entire rant in its full context (click “expand” to view transcript):

CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP

7/8/25

10:36 PM

ABBY PHILLIP: I guess what I'm saying, like, if you show up at a park and all you see are kids, why would you go forward with the operation? And the people that you, maybe they were, I don't know, they haven't actually said, to your point, they've said virtually nothing about this. The ICE spokesperson told CNN the agency is not commenting on ongoing operations. We don't know if they were looking for someone. We don't know if they arrested anybody. But clearly, whoever they were looking for, there was no one there but kids.

TIFFANY CROSS: I think this is the challenge I have with even talking about this. We are normalizing a government agency disappearing people. We are normalizing, we're talking about it like it's no big deal that they are kidnapping people and transporting them to concentration camps, both domestic and foreign.

KELLY JANE TORRANCE: I find that- I think that's kind of insulting to Jewish Holocaust survivors. 

CROSS: I think it’s insulting what they’re doing. It is not insulting to Jewish -- I find it insulting that you could even fix your mouth to defend this disgusting behavior.

TORRANCE: Are there gas ovens at these camps? 

CROSS: It doesn't matter. It's a concentration camp what they're doing. And they are disappearing people claiming that these are people who have committed the most harsh crimes. But according to the reporting, less than 10 percent of these people have committed harsh crimes. So to do the Victim Olympics and decide who had it worse, I can tell you, I can participate in that too. And everybody who says, oh, this is not the America I know, I can guarantee you it is the America I know.

TORRANCE: Let's be absolutely honest. 

CROSS: The fact that we're presenting this like it's political fodder that a government agency is disappearing people, it is not a political point. It has nothing to do with Jewish people because despite the fact that 20 percent of immigrants in this country are white, we do not see white people getting carted off to concentration camps. So if we can just focus on the most people, the people who are harmed the most by this and not make yourself or somebody else the center of attention when that's not who's being impacted by this -- 

TORRANCE: I'm not Jewish, but I'm saying that kind of language--

CROSS: -- or anyone else, the center of attention, they don't heighten using that kind of language. I think it's not because this BS administration is kidnapping people. It has nothing to do with my language. It has to do with the actions that are being taken by this administration. 

TORRANCE: And how many people have been disappeared that you've never heard from again? And we don't know anything about them or where they've gone.

(CROSSTALK)

CROSS: Thousands of people are never heard about them. Where they're going.

(CROSSTALK)

CROSS: Are you a reporter? Are you not a reporter? Yes. Thousands of people, thousands of people 

TORRANCE: -- in El Salvadoran prisons who, you know -- 

CROSS: I'm sorry. I just want to be clear. Are you defending what's happening? 

TORRANCE: I am not defending. I'm saying let's be accurate about what's happening. 

CROSS: I'm being very accurate. And it is very disgusting what this administration is doing. And ten, five, six months, 20 years from now, I hope that you can look back at this very clip and realize that you are on the wrong side of history. If you're trying to remotely defend what's happening, there are fathers, mothers and young people who are being carted off to concentration camps. And less than 10 percent of these people have committed any sort of violent crime. They are coming up, people whose kids are in school, they are never to see their family again.

The context within which this happened was a conversation about the presence of ICE officers and National Guard members at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, California, which appeared to trigger mayor Karen Bass. As usual, liberal framing demands that immigration enforcement operations be cast in the worst possible light- legitimate government function as authoritarian excess. And then Cross opens her mouth.

Where to even begin? Cross accuses the government of disappearing people (not a peep when the Biden administration LITERALLY DISAPPEARED close to 300,000 kids but it’s (D)ifferent), of “transporting them” to “concentration camps”, indignantly says this is not offensive to Jews, doubles and triples down on the claim with Nazi-evocative language while chiding Kelly Jane Torrance of The New York Post about being on the right side of history.

To be clear, that such unhinged dribble would fly out of Tiffany Cross’s mouth comes as a surprise to no one. The crack about the “Victim Olympics” was on par with the kind of stuff she’d say while hosting her MSNBC weekend show. 

The issue here is that Abby Philip let Cross rant unchecked and uninterrupted for almost three minutes. Compare that to her lightning interruptions of Scott Jennings, Shermichael Singleton or any other conservative guest when they begin to say something even remotely contrary to whatever the progressive consensus is on any given issue. Compare that also to her ref stoppages whenever any of the liberal panelists is in the process of being wrecked by the aforementioned conservatives. 

Cross is who she is. The issue here is the double standard, without which there’d be none at all.