CNN’s Van Jones had a tense exchange with Tennessee state Rep. Jeremy Faison, the chair of the Republican Caucus, saying in the interview that state Republicans had been “unreasonable” in expelling two Black Democrats over a floor protest on gun violence.
“If you are here saying you want this legislature to be respected, why are you not following the rules and using the tools that you have?” Jones asked Faison during the exchange. “You want them to not be extreme, but you’re being extreme. Why is that?”
Faison noted that there was a “lot of accusation on your part there” to Jones, before claiming that Republican lawmakers followed the rules.
“We gave them ample chance. We established what was taking place on Monday. There was due process,” Faison said, adding, “It is not just up to me. There’s actually 71, I think, or 70, of the members who after looking at what took place today they voted to expel one of them.”
Jones then interrupted the Tennessee state lawmaker to reiterate his question.
“I’m just trying to understand — why did you not go to the Ethics Committee and do the things that are always done in that body?” Jones said. “You have not done this to anybody except for two people in 200 years. You can’t tell me that there have not been people who have also been disruptive.”
“I don’t understand why you skipped the Ethics Committee if you want respect,” he added. “And if you want for people to be reasonable, why are you being so unreasonable and why are you skipping steps?”
Faison emphasized that the decision to expel the Democratic lawmakers was the choice of the majority of his caucus.
“What you need to understand is this is a body of people who decide corporately what we’re gonna do moving forward,” Faison said. “This body spoke many times. I brought our caucus together several times since last Thursday to ask the body what we as a group wanted to do. The overwhelming majority – the heartbeat of this caucus – says, ‘Not on this House floor. Not this way.’”
He added that the Republican caucus, which currently maintains supermajority control of the chamber, decided they did not “want to go the Ethics route” or have the lawmakers censured.
“When you’re in leadership, you encourage people to look at all the aspects and then you work with what the majority of your people want to do,” he said.
Faison ultimately cut the interview short, after a similarly tense exchange with CNN’s Sara Sidner.
As CNN’s Kaitlan Collins attempted to jump in with another question, the Tennessee state lawmaker walked off camera.
“Representative, I know you’ve got a long drive home, one final question for you,” Collins started, before adding, “Alright, well, Chairman Faison has left us.”
The Tennessee House voted to expel state Reps. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) and Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) on Thursday for leading chants from the House floor last week, following a shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville that killed six people.