It’s easy to see how the liberal media allows fascists to gain a foothold around the world. From the NYT not reporting properly on the Holocaust, to Maggie Haberman sitting on stories that had national security implications so she could sell a book. Now, CNN is adding to this less-than-illustrious history.
Whether it’s because of some nebulous concept of balance, or because the bosses at Warner Bros. Discovery (who owns the channel) would rather have a crazy wannabe-dictator in than pay a minor increase in taxes, CNN has become increasingly poor at critically covering the growing extremism on the American right. And no talking head on the network typifies this more than Scott Jennings.
Jennings first came to prominence as a political strategist in the 2000s, when George W Bush hired him to help with his successful presidential run. The native Kentuckian suffered through some scandals during his time in the Republican party machine, although compared to what the GOP does today he was practically a saint. With that said, many of the worst impulses of MAGA were shaped by the Bush administration’s actions, and Jennings played a large part in that degradation of presidential and political norms.
After Trump’s election, Jennings became a CNN talking head. He also recently endorsed the former Apprentice host, showcasing a lack of backbone that would make a jellyfish jealous. And, now, he continues to spew hatred and misinformation on the network whenever he is given a chance, which is far too often.
Most recently, Jennings tried to claim that the huge wave of enthusiasm that the Harris campaign has seen was “manufactured,” which is ironic given the Republican party’s history of doing things like buying books from its politicans en masse to push them to the top of best-seller’s lists.
Thankfully, Jennings was not allowed to spread his misinformation unchecked, being called out by fellow guest Bakari Sellers. Talking directly to Jennings, he said:
“You’ve been part of a lot of campaigns, right…and how many campaigns in your manufacturing have you been able to manufacture 400,000 volunteers, or $540 million?”
Jennings is obviously on to cause controversy, but the fact is that the former strategist is turning many viewers off, including Luke Skywalker actor and anti-Republican stalwart Mark Hamill.
One of the more frustrating elements of Jennings’ bare-faced partisan nature is that we have seen many Republicans cross the divide over the past few weeks, putting the health of American democracy above factional party politics and endorsing Harris, or at least criticizing Trump. However, that won’t generate as many outrage clicks for Jennings and CNN, so for now it seems we’re stuck with him.