THUNDERDOME: Abby Phillip Crashes Out, Jennings Schools Jarvis

Jorge Bonilla
April 23rd, 2025 10:03 AM

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Tonight’s edition of Thunderdome, more commonly known as CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, was spicier than usual as host and’or panelists clashed over such issues as the role of the president in setting monetary policy, and the rise of “right-wing” media as trust in corporate “Legacy Media” continues to crater.

Watch as host Abby Phillip absolutely melts down and condescends at conservative panelists Scott Jennigs and Shermichael Singleton over President Trump’s attempts to influence Fed policy (click “expand” to view transcripts):

SCOTT JENNINGS: Do you honestly believe the president shouldn't be able to render opinions about monetary policies?

ABBY PHILLIP: Scott, you keep repeating something that nobody ever said. No one ever said that Trump cannot have it.

JENNINGS: We're having original thoughts here.

PHILLIP: No, no, no, no, Scott. No one ever said that Trump can't have an opinion. The question is, should the Fed act based on that opinion? And I think it's just common sense, right? The Fed, it should be acting based on economic information and data, not anybody's opinion. Trump is not an economist, and as far as I can tell, does not even have a good grasp on how trade works, which is really problematic if he's going to then turn around and start telling the Fed how to do stuff.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: …is, like, we don't want Donald Trump to have influence over the operation of the government. And, you know, I just think it's wrong. 

PHILLIP: We don't want to have Donald Trump have influence over monetary policy. That is how it has worked. That is where the confidence in this system of economics comes.

JENNINGS: You said monetary policy. She said DoJ, military, FBI. What were the other --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Hold on just a second. I'm going to reset because I'm going to change back to the original conversation because, Scott, you are attempting to change the subject multiple times. 

JENNINGS: No. I’m trying to decide if the president should have influence on our government.

PHILLIP: So, go ahead, Shermichael.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON: Sometimes I think we forget history. Let's go back to LBJ. LBJ actually flew the Fed chief down to Texas, his ranch and berated him because he was pissed off about some of his decisions.

PHILLIP: Uh huh. And then what?

SINGLETON: Let's remember.

PHILLIP: And then what?

SINGLETON: I'm going to make --

PHILLIP: No, no, no. And then what happened?

SINGLETON: I want to make my point.

PHILLIP: Finish your point. What happened?

SINGLETON: Then George H.W. Bush blamed his Fed chair --

PHILLIP: But, Shermichael, I'm going to pause you there. What happened?

SINGLETON: So, my point is -- that's not all, my God. The point that I'm trying to make --

PHILLIP: Shermichael, tell me what happened.

SINGLETON: History matters here and sometimes --

PHILLIP: It does.

JENNINGS: Shermichael, they want him to be a figurehead. They don't want him to be the president.

SINGLETON: We talk about Trump.

PHILLIP: No, he is the president of the United States.

SINGLETON: Can I finish my freaking statement?

PHILLIP: No. No, no, no, no, no.

SINGLETON: You just interject. I haven't concluded my thought process.

PHILLIP: I want to pause here.

SINGLETON: So, the point is --

PHILLIP: Shermichael --

SINGLETON: -- there have been previous presidents..

PHILLIP: Hold on. You hold on just one second.

SINGLETON: …that had similar thought processes as to the Fed as Trump. That's the simple position I'm trying to make here.

PHILLIP: I want to pause on your half-finished history lesson. What did the Fed do after LBJ brought him down to his ranch?

SINGLETON: Listen, to LBJ or George H.W. Bush.

PHILLIP: So, what is your point?

SINGLETON: The point is, previous presidents have been of the mindset similar to Trump that I don't like the decision of the Fed chair, I would like the chair to change their particular opinion.

PHILLIP: I feel like I am in an alternative universe here in which you guys keep telling me that I'm saying Trump doesn't deserve to have an opinion. He's a human being. He's the president of the United States. He can have whatever opinions he wants.

SINGLETON: That's not what I said. I said that we're forgetting history.

PHILLIP: The question is, where is the historical analogy--

SINGLETON: Trump isn't the first president to berate or dislike the position of the Fed chair. That's my point.

PHILLIP: Shermichael, where is the historical analogy for the Fed acting on the desire of a president to behave in a particular way and doing so while ignoring economic data? Where is the evidence of that?

SINGLETON: That's not the premise of my argument. The premise of my argument is pretty simple. We're making this as if it's breaking news that Trump has a thought process about the Fed he wants restraint and act a certain way.

PHILLIP: You cannot bring history about this if you don't want to finish the history.

SINGLETON: So have previous presidents.

PHILLIP: You're not finishing the history, Shermichael.

SINGLETON: Okay. Well, what history am I forgetting here?

PHILLIP: You can't bring it into the conversation --

SINGLETON: Please inform me. 

PHILLIP: You cannot bring it into the conversation if it is not germane.

SINGLETON: Why can’t I? Oh, come on, Abby.

PHILLIP: If the Fed did not act on that berating, then how is that a parallel?

SINGLETON: So, I don't know how I can be more clear or provide more clarity here. I never stated that the Fed and either of the instances that I provided acted on the thought process or advice or anger of previous presidents.

PHILLIP: Okay. Okay. Well, great.

SINGLETON: My point is that Trump is acting in a similar manner of previous presidents and we cannot ignore that there.

PHILLIP: There's precedents…great. There’s precedents for presidents having opinions. Thank you for that. But there is not a precedent for the Fed acting on those opinions.

SINGLETON: I never said that. I never said that. That's not my argument.

Normally, Phillip sets the pace of debate and steps in with a ref save when a liberal is getting choked out by one of the conservatives. Here, she very clearly entered the fray- chastising both Jennings and Singleton for thinking their own thoughts on the role presidents should play with regard to monetary policy. Jennings was accused, without evidence, of trying to change the subject. Meanwhile, Singleton was not even allowed to finish his take. It is not often, even by liberal media standards, that we see such an open display of contempt for counter-narrative arguments as was displayed by Phillip. A sneering contempt, by the way, that is at the heart of America’s loss of trust in the media.

Fast forward to the debate on the significance of the departure of longtime 60 Minutes producer Bill Owens. CUNY professor Jeff Jarvis joins the panel and caterwauls about what the resignation of Owens and a potential CBS settlement with President Donald Trump may do to CBS’s value, which got a chuckle out of Jennings:

JEFF JARVIS: Shermichael, what does this do to the value of CBS, the former Tiffany Network? When people cannot know whether to trust it anymore, when they wonder what stories they'll -- they'll be, and I know you laugh, Scott, because you've been the one with trust.

JENNINGS: I think people have lost trust in it for a lot of reasons. But it's nothing to do with this deal.

Jennings is not wrong. CBS’s brand value has been eroding for many years now. The former Tiffany Network is essentially the genesis of “fake news”, and anyone doubting that can take a minute and google Dan Rather and Mary Mapes. As a result of an ongoing trust in media that began well before Donald Trump went down the gilded escalator, people go where they believe they will find credible reporting. CBS hasn’t been credible for a long time, and their ratings show it.

In another potent exchange, Jarvis continues to grouse about the state of media, and walks right into a Scott Jennings buzzsaw when trying to talk about “right wing media”:

JEFF JARVIS: The bigger question is that mass media are dying. I hate to say this in the middle of (CROSSTALK).

PHILLIP: Yeah, we -- we all know that. 

JARVIS: Mass media are dying. And so, if you try to think that we're going to be- please everybody, those days are over. You've got to stand on some principle. You've got to stand for something. You've got to be somewhere in this -- in this spectrum. And if you think you're just going to make nice to everybody, the problem is that the right wing, hello, Scott, has, taken advantage of this situation, I think, quite cleverly, quite wisely. They've played into a weakness.

JENNINGS: What situation?

JARVIS: The situation of media being under attack. And so, they've created a situation where --

JENNINGS: You've almost got it. Keep going. What -- what the right wing is taking advantage of is, finally, the American people saying enough is enough. They're tired of feeling like the mass media screens out one viewpoint versus another in political coverage. They're tired of media institutions favoring one party over another.

They're tired of narratives over factual stories. If I had any advice for "60 Minutes" or anybody else, it would be: just cover the news and try to be fair about it and stop putting your finger on the scale, especially during the pandemic.

JARVIS: That's -- that's -- you're -- you're talking about the old mass media myth, that you could have this thing that was in the middle. The Walter Cronkite saying, that's the way it is, when it wasn't for many Americans the way it was, when people were pissed off.

JENNINGS: People -- but people back in those days trusted the media.

JARVIS: No, they just couldn't be heard because there was no truth. And now that we have the Internet

JENNINGS: Look at the Gallup poll. It was here, and now it's here. It's fallen off of a cliff.

PHILLIP: Yeah, we -- we do have -- we do have that Gallup polling about trust in media.

JARVIS: It’s terrible.

PHILLIP: And now, as in recent years, and let's be honest, Scott. A lot of this is driven by the rhetoric on your side of the aisle. I mean, it's not --

JENNINGS: You think it's driven by the rhetoric and not the performance?

PHILLIP: Absolutely. 

Only could a cloistered member of the Acela Media believe, let alone publicly say, that distrust in media is driven by conservatives as opposed to an ongoing pattern of media suck. Conservatives did not suppress Hunter’s laptop or the lab leak theory, or actively participate in concealing Joe Biden’s decline from the American public until book deals could be had. The media did that. Trust numbers reflect that. 

Finally, Jennings delivers a roadmap to regaining lost credibility. But will a post-deal CBS (or anyone else in the Legacy Media, for that matter) heed Jennings’ advice? It remains to be seen.

JENNINGS: My point is this: if you're CBS or any other news outlet, the reason that you have lost trust ought to be obvious to you. And the way to fix it also ought to be obvious to you. And it has nothing to do with Donald Trump and everything to do with the product. Just try to make a better product that appeals to more people, and the way you appeal to more people is by not crapping on half or more than half of the country because of their values and political viewpoints.

PHILLIP: I think that that is a fair, just -- if we were sort of on another planet. Out of context, it is a fair description of what is necessary in this moment.

Jennings is right inasmuch as this has everything to do with the product that media are delivering. And because they are Trump-deranged, the product will continue to be Trump derangement. And, on clue, Phillip’s rebuttal proves Jennings’ point. Time will tell whether they adjust. But if Abby’s performance is any indicator, it doesn’t seem likely.

An exit palate-cleanser: Watch as former Bernie Sanders advisor Chuck Rocha finds bipartisan consensus with Jennings and Singleton, as they bond over former Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel getting yelled at by some white Karen progressive podcast host:

ROCHA: That's what I need. I need another white woman telling me what to do.

JENNINGS: I was going to say, I mean, with all due respect to our colleague, him getting yelled at by one of these liberal white ladies on a podcast is like the most-- Shermichael and I cannot get --this is the content America needs.

SINGLETON: Oh, it is. (CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: Getting yelled at by liberal white ladies, who are dragging your party into the depths.

 

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