Jillian Michaels Exposes How CNN Lied About Her After On-Air Fight w/ Host
What this video covers
This seven-minute Rubin Report segment is Dave Rubin defending Jillian Michaels after her most explosive cable-news appearance — and it can only be understood alongside the appearance itself. In mid-August 2025, Michaels appeared on CNN’s “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” during a panel on the Trump administration’s order for a review of Smithsonian exhibits. The directive, per reporting, asked the Smithsonian to remove “improper ideology,” celebrate American exceptionalism, and drop divisive narratives. Michaels argued on air that Trump was not “whitewashing slavery,” insisting that slavery, imperialism, and racism “cannot be tied to just one race” — which she said was “pretty much what every single [museum] exhibit does.”
The exchange went sideways fast. Phillip pushed back — “I’m surprised that you’re trying to litigate who was the beneficiary of slavery” — and fellow panelists challenged Michaels’ framing. Michaels cited a contested figure that fewer than 2% of white Americans owned slaves, accused Phillip of “racializing” the discussion, and later posted photos of a Smithsonian exhibit on Cuba to back her claims; reporting noted the pictured exhibit did not say what she claimed it said. Days later, Phillip delivered an on-air monologue calling Michaels’ claims false and describing slavery as “evil, the nation’s original sin.”
Rubin’s segment, posted September 2, is built around the CNN clip itself plus Michaels’s own retelling of the exchange: she recounts walking in expecting the panel to misframe the review as “erasing slavery,” confident that none of the installations the administration objected to were about slavery, and describes the moment Phillip and Rep. Ritchie Torres accused her of trying to “relitigate slavery in America” as the two sides talking past each other. Rubin closes with a personal broadside, calling Phillip “the dumbest person on television” — “nothing behind her eyes,” in his words — rather than rebutting her monologue point by point. Both halves are presented here because the chronicle’s job is the full picture — what Michaels said on CNN (per contemporaneous reporting from USA Today, The Wrap, and BuzzFeed), how Phillip responded on air, and how Rubin and Michaels reframed the episode for his audience. The video is their argument, not a neutral recap, and the underlying CNN exchange is documented well enough elsewhere to check it against.
Key points
- The underlying event: Michaels’ August 2025 “NewsNight” appearance, where she argued Trump’s Smithsonian review was not “whitewashing slavery” and that museum exhibits wrongly tie slavery and racism to one race.
- Per contemporaneous reporting, Phillip and fellow panelists challenged her on air; Michaels cited a contested “fewer than 2% owned slaves” figure and accused Phillip of racializing the discussion.
- Days later, Phillip delivered an on-air monologue rebutting Michaels’ claims and calling slavery “evil, the nation’s original sin.”
- In this segment, Michaels herself recounts the exchange: she says she came in confident none of the installations the administration objected to were about slavery, and frames the “relitigate slavery” charge from Phillip and Torres as two sides talking past each other — his framing, presented as their argument.
- Rubin closes the segment with a personal attack on Phillip, calling her “the dumbest person on television,” rather than a point-by-point rebuttal of her monologue.
- The segment illustrates the media ecosystem around Michaels: a cable-news flashpoint, a host’s on-air rebuttal, and a friendly commentator’s counter-narrative, each aimed at a different audience.
- Included with both sides documented: the CNN exchange per mainstream reporting, and Rubin’s defense per his own show.