On Monday's CNN Newsroom, co-host Jim Sciutto and correspondent Kaylee Hartung seemed befuddled over why Georgia GOP gubernatorial nominee Brian Kemp accused his Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, of wanting non-citizens to vote illegally, all while ignoring recent video of her seeming to encourage just that. (In the video she says that the "blue wave" will include those who are "undocumented.")
At 10:50 a.m. Eastern, Sciutto brought up the current dispute between Kemp and Abrams over thousands of new voter registrations that were put on hold because of problems with how the forms were filled out, leading Hartung to recall that most of the voters affected are African-American.
She then brought up an appearance by Kemp on FNC's Fox and Friends from earlier in the morning in which he dismissed accusations of "voter suppression" by Democrats as he noted any voters with registrations on hold can easily correct those on Election Day by showing up to vote with their photo ID which they would already have to bring anyway.\
He also suggested that Abrams wishes for non-citizens to register to vote in Georgia as he alluded to a lawsuit she had been involved with.
A confused Sciutto then asked: "But he just made a claim there. Is there any basis to the claim that this is a way to get nonstate residents to vote in this election? I mean, does that claim stand up?"
After Hartung suggested that Abrams had only encouraged qualified voters to register, Sciutto responded: "Getting first-time voters to vote is not proof of voter fraud."
But the two ignored the fact that the Fox and Friends segment had begun with video of Abrams speaking to a crowd and stating that the "blue wave" would include "those who are documented and undocumented," which was used as the starting point for the discussion on FNC.
Additionally, Kemp may have been referring to a lawsuit that attempted to stop Georgia from implementing measures to make it difficult for non-citizens with Georgia drivers licenses to illegally register to vote.
