During Thursday night’s broadcast of CNN Tonight, news broke that Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) went public with her support for the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act.” Host Laura Coates was elated to announce the news to her viewers when she returned from a commercial break. Turning to her panelists, each of whom praised the legislation with the exception of Republican CNN political analyst Scott Jennings who warned his fellow panelists that this will come back to bite them.
After Coates turned to Jennings for his reaction, he let the leftists on the CNN set have it: “First of all, no games will change until 2026 because the prescription drug provisions don't kick in until then. So as a political matter, nothing’s going to change.”
“I really think the biggest problem the Democrats have with passing this -- you can call it a win -- but they've named a piece of legislation the Inflation Reduction Act, Jennings noted. “The Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation have said this will have at best a negligible impact on inflation,” he added.
Jennings predicted that “If you vote on a bill today to say reduce inflation and in two months, three months, when we're going to the polls and inflation has not come down, you're gonna own that. And so, I really do think they have a branding issue on this.”
He then surmised that Democrats changed the bill’s name to the Inflation Reduction Act “so that Joe Manchin can go out and claim he did something.”
Continuing to rail against the proposed legislation, Jennings pointed out that “the prescription drug stuff doesn't happen for years. The climate stuff is out in the future somewhere. The main issue is inflation and it does nothing despite the bill’s title.”
Clearly frustrated that facts and logic have seeped into her show, Coates sneered: “Do you think that the voters think to themselves the name is more important than the meat on the bone? I mean really?”
Jennings shot back: “I think if you tell people hey we passed a bill called Inflation Reduction Act, and inflation doesn’t go down or maybe it goes up in the short term according to one analysis they might notice because they're already noticing. It's the number one issue in the country!”
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To read the relevant transcript click “expand”:
CNN Tonight
August 4, 2022
9:34:59 p.m. EasternSCOTT JENNINGS: First of all, no games will change until 2026 because the prescription drug provisions don't kick in until then. So as a political matter, nothing’s going to change. I really think the biggest problem the Democrats have with passing this -- you can call it a win -- but they've named a piece of legislation the Inflation Reduction Act. The Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation have said this will have at best a negligible impact on inflation.
And so if inflation is the number one issue in the country. And according to the polling, it is. If you vote on a bill today to say reduce inflation and in two months, three months, when we're going to the polls and inflation has not come down, you're gonna own that. And so, I really do think they have a branding issue on this. I know why they changed the name of it so that Joe Manchin can go out and claim he did something.
But that's not going to change what's happening to voters themselves. So, the prescription drug stuff doesn't happen for years. The climate stuff is out in the future somewhere. The main issue is inflation and it does nothing despite the bill’s title.
LAURA COATES: Do you think that the voters think to themselves the name is more important than the meat on the bone? I mean really?
JENNINGS: I think if you tell people hey we passed a bill called Inflation Reduction Act, and inflation doesn’t go down or maybe it goes up in the short term according to one analysis they might notice because they're already noticing. It's the number one issue in the country!
