‘WE NOW HAVE A PRESIDENT’: CNN’s Scott Jennings Dunks on EVERYONE

Jorge Bonilla
February 4th, 2025 1:22 PM

Text to Speech

00:00 00:00
Font Size

CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip returned to form on Monday night. By “form”, we mean that Ratings King Scott Jennings uttered a plain truth and rendered nearly the entire panel to an incoherent, stuttering mess. 

Consider this exchange with CNN International anchor Richard Quest (click “expand” to view transcript):

RICHARD QUEST: Okay, so we got this new this and new that and the sort. 

SCOTT JENNINGS: Yes. 

QUEST: But was it worth pissing off and offending Canada, which is one of your closest allies? Was it worth all the angst, the drama, the- the raw emotion when you could have had it with a negotiation?

BAKARI SELLERS: Can I also chime in? I mean, is that a direct question?

JENNINGS: Yeah, no it is.

ABBY PHILLIP:  He's addressing it, let Scott answer.

QUEST: It is a direct question!

JENNINGS: Richard.

SELLERS: I'm sorry.

JENNINGS: Richard. So you're- you're you seem to be extraordinarily worked up about what amounted to 12 hours of conversations between our governments…

QUEST: Ohhhhhhhh

JENNIGS: …and the net result of it was everybody who didn't want tariffs should be- like you, should be happy. Everybody who wants less immigration should be happy, and everybody who wants less. We should all be saying it's a win-win!

(CROSSTALK)

CATHERINE RAMPELL: We are back to the status quo! (SIGHHHHHHHHHHH)

QUEST: This is going to come back to bite in a way. First of all, Colombia. Second of all, Mexico, third of all Canada. Then you've got the European Union. All these allies are going to remember that they were bullied at the edge of a….

JENNINGS: No. They're going to remember that the United States is the dominant nation in this hemisphere.

QUEST: OOOOOOHHHHH! That makes you feel really good, doesn’t it?

RAMPELL: They’re going to remember that Trump just (CROSSTALK)

QUEST (BANGING TABLE): That! Makes! You! Feel! Really! Good! 

JENNINGS: And we have a president. And now we have a president.

The entire segment on tariffs was chirpy, and can be reduced to: libs mad. There is the overall frustration that President Donald Trump extracted immediate concessions from Canada and Mexico, he did previously from Panama and Colombia. There is a sense of helplessness in the media at the speed with which the Trump administration is moving forward. Powerless to stop it, the media bleat- as did Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell at Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) as she described the real, tangible, and palpable harm that was done to public safety in New York City as a result of Joe Biden’s open border:

NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS: The way that we have seen gang members taking over our streets…

ABY PHILLIP: I get it.

MALLIOTAKIS: …the way we have seen crimes committed, stabbings, murders…

PHILLIP: I get it.

MALLIOTAKIS: …police officers being assaulted.

PHILLIP: And- and nobody is saying-

MALLIOTAKIS: But the thing is, is that Joe Biden created that crisis with his policies.

PHILLIP: And nobody is- no, no. Nobody is denying that. We’re just talking about the numbers…

CATHERINE RAMPELL: I am. I live here. I feel safe.

Whether on the border, or on DOGE vis USAID, the left have been reduced to the defiant utterings of a six-year-old- as exemplified by Rampell’s squeaky protestations here.

Back to Jennings and the panel on tariffs. Quest was echoing both the sentiments of the dying post-World War II order, and continued American dominance while potentially unwinding that order. The mere suggestion that America might place her interests above those of other countries threw Quest into a sputtering tizzy, further inflamed by Jennings’ assertion that America once again has a president. A functioning, coherent president who is now dominant on the world stage. 

This is a point that Jennings made to Bakari Sellers while discussing DOGE and the shuttering of the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID)- the idea that America once again has a coherent president. Also take note of host Abby Phillip’s defense of the doxxing of the DOGE employees assigned to USAID (click “expand”):

ABBY PHILLIP: That lends to an important question. Why is it, Scott, that Elon Musk claims that it is a crime to tweet out the names of the six individuals who I, I have to assume are government employees? Maybe they're not- who are going around and carrying out his orders and telling people, for example, to not come into work at an entire federal agency, who are going into the Treasury asking for access to a sensitive payment system. How is it a crime to know who those people are?

SCOTT JENNINGS: I don't know if it's a crime or not. I think it's certainly untoward to try to out…

PHILLIP: Why?

JENNINGS: …because you're trying to sic an angry mob on people who are showing up to try to- to try to…

PHILLIP: Wait, wait,wait. First of all, this…

JENNINGS: To try to act on behalf of the President of the United States.

PHILLIP: This is- first of all, this is his platform, okay? If his own platform is an angry mob, that's one thing. But he also does this all the time. And these are people who are doing things that affect Americans. They're working in the government, so I don’t see why it would be a secret.

JENNINGS: Well, they’re doing things- they're doing things that affect the bureaucracy, which is why you see all the rage today. And I'm.

PHILLIP: You don’t think that this stuff affects Americans, Scott?

JENNINGS: I mean, yeah, probably in a positive way. And I'm glad to see Democrats are coming around to the idea that the unelected people who might be involved in the running of our country are important, because you seemed to have no interest in that for the last four years under the last administration. Here's the bottom line. The American people…

BAKARI SELLERS: I don’t know what that means.

JENNINGS:  …the American people, you know, what that means is that you had a president who was not functional, and you know it. Here's- here's what we're talking about…

SELLERS: Oh, we’re talking about Joe Biden. Okay. I’m sorry.

JENNINGS: Here is…here is…here is…

PHILLIP: So, actually- by that same token, I mean, if you're concerned about the people around Joe Biden running the government, why aren't you concerned about the people around Donald Trump running the government?

JENNINGS: Because I don't have any concern that this president is functional. He's a functional president, and Musk is an agent of the president.

PHILLIP: I mean- but seriously, why are you not concerned that Elon Musk is, according to a lot of reports, someone that no one around the president wants to even cross because he's so powerful and he has leverage over this president because he spent $250 million to get him elected.

JENNINGS: Look, the president was elected. He runs the government. Elon Musk is an agent of the executive branch at the direction of the president. And as the president said today, he's not doing anything that he doesn't have permission to do. And I will just remind you all, one of the things he was elected to do is to shake up Washington, stop doing business as usual, and rein in an out-of-control bureaucracy that, as the Congresswoman (Malliotakis) correctly pointed out, is spending money in ways that was never intended.

That Phillip should even ask why this is a problem after the violence of the last few years staggers the imagination. The shootings of Steve Scalise, the threats against Supreme Court Justices (one of whom was almost murdered in his home), and the near-assassination of President Donald Trump collectively bear witness to the unhinged lunacy of her premise. Jennings handles this, as he often does, with class and grace. 

The meltdown is only beginning.

 

Donor Privacy Policy