CNN 'Republican' Davis: French Riots? Nobody Cares, Students Started It, Thugs Hijacked It

Chuck Rocha Ashley Davis CNN This Morning 10-20-26

Ashley Davis, the former Bush White House official who regularly appears on CNN as a house Republican, delivered a performance on Tuesday’s CNN This Morning that could have come straight from a Democratic or DSA talking-points memo

Asked whether the weekend violence in France—riots, looting, and arson—might affect midterm voting, Davis shrugged it off. “Most of Americans don’t [care about what’s going on in France], and it’s not going to change the message,” she said. 

In other words, only people like the panelists care; ordinary voters can safely ignore burning streets in a major Western capital two weeks before an election.

She then supplied the approved origin story, starting with an accidental self-identification. “We had a half a million protesters,” she said, before catching herself: “not we, France did.” 

The slip was revealing. Davis was speaking as a member of the bien-pensant Euro class, viewing the original demonstrators as people with “a really, really good issue”—“a concern about the education, about the ability for kids to go to school, to have good schools.” 

Right. All those valedictorians demanding advanced calculus classes.

Once the images of smashed storefronts and fires appeared, she pivoted: the protests had been “hijacked, in my mind, I have no idea where they’re from, it doesn’t matter, but they’ve been hijacked by thugs that are starting to destroy stores.” 

Translation: We know darn well “where they’re from”—but that doesn’t fit the liberal narrative.
 

Davis then reached for the George Floyd analogy with a notable lack of certainty and an even more notable omission. 

“Remember that happened here. I think it was the George Floyd peaceful protests that were happening years ago, and we had people that were brought in that had nothing to do with the protests that were breaking into all the city centers.”

You think it was the Floyd protests? And not even the network’s old “mostly peaceful” qualifier—straight-up “peaceful”—until those imported outsiders arrived. 

Somewhere, George Wallace is smiling about Davis condemning those outside agitators. She offered no evidence of whether any were brought in or how—Craigslist ads from the RNC recruiting looters and arsonists, perhaps?—any more than she identified the French “hijackers” of supposedly unknown origin.

In both cases Davis’ tactic functioned as a conversation-ender: the cause was noble, the violence was imported, and further inquiry is unnecessary.

CNN continues to book Davis as the Republican counterweight. In this segment, she did the opposite—an apologist who minimized the chaos, protected the student-protest framing, declared the identity of the people who set the fires irrelevant, and recycled the outside-agitators accusation from the 2020 George Floyd riots.

The midterms are two weeks away. Voters were told the burning streets of France are something only pundits should care about.

Here's the transcript.

CNN This Morning
10/20/26
6:00 am EDT

ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Morning, everyone. I'm Elliot Williams, in for Audie Cornish. We begin here. President Trump seizes the unrest in France to issue a warning two weeks out from the midterms. Over the weekend, demonstrations broke out across France. People taken to the streets protesting soaring inflation, cost of living, and gas prices. In some places, it turned to riots and looting.

Now, President Trump is trying to use it to his benefit, turning it into an argument for hardline immigration, and a cautionary tale for what could happen here in America.

DONALD TRUMP: If you want to see what is at stake in this election, just look at what's happening in France, a once great nation that is being conquered, looted, and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists, and communists who hate Christianity, and they hate, frankly, the Western civilization itself. When you see burning steeples and raging fires in France, just remember that is what the radical Dumocrats want to do to America.

WILLIAMS: All right, today in the Group Chat, Mario Parker, managing editor of economy and government at Bloomberg News, Chuck Rocha, Democratic strategist and former senior advisor to Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns, and Ashley Davis, former White House official under President George W. Bush. Welcome all,

Ashley, I've got to start with you on this sort of bigger point. You know, a professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins says, quote, the events in France are not going to win a single vote for Republicans, though it could mobilize the base to vote.

Can you tell us how does what's happening overseas with protests maybe affect how Republican voters turn out to the polls this year, or maybe not?

ASHLEY DAVIS: No, I really think that just the people around this table and some others that care about the day-to-day aspect of foreign policy care about what's going on in France, but most of Americans don't, and it's not going to change the message. Who he's talking to there is the base, and so they are just seeing, like, the chaos.

And remember, the reason that they're protesting, we had a half-a-million protesters, not we, France did, in regards to a really, really good issue. I mean, there was a concern about the education, about the, the ability for kids to go to school, to have good schools.

And it's been hijacked, in my mind. I have no idea where they're from, it doesn't matter. But they've been hijacked by thugs that are starting to destroy stores.

Remember that happened here. I think it was the George Floyd peaceful protests that were happening years ago, and we had people that were brought in that had nothing to do with the protests that were breaking into all the city centers.