CNN's resident MAGA defender keeps getting his past Jan. 6 condemnation thrown back in his face

Independent

7 hours ago

In January 2021, CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings was unwavering in his criticism of Donald Trump following the Capitol riots, saying that the president 'caused this insurrection with his lies and conspiracy theories' and 'every Republican must condemn it.'
Now that Jennings is the network's resident MAGA defender and Trump has federally taken over Washington while deploying the National Guard into the city because of a so-called 'crime emergency,' the longtime GOP strategist is now getting his past anti-Trump criticism of January 6 thrown back in his face.
And, quite frankly, he is not thrilled about it.
Hours after the president held his Monday press conference announcing that he was seizing control of the D.C. police department and mobilizing the military to patrol the city's streets to 'rescue' the nation's capital from 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,' Jennings appeared on CNN NewsNight to discuss Trump's widely criticized move.
Spurred into action by images of former DOGE staffer Edward 'Big Balls' Coristine bloodied following an attempted carjacking and Fox News reports about crime in D.C., Trump has called his move 'Liberation Day in D.C.' while giving the green light to law enforcement to 'do whatever the hell they want.' Critics, meanwhile, have noted that despite the president's rhetoric about 'out-of-control' crime, violent crime has rapidly declined in the city over the past two years and is at a 30-year low.
During the Monday night CNN panel discussion, Jennings was unsurprisingly applauding the president's decision as being tough on crime while showing support for law enforcement, prompting fellow panelist Tara Setmayer to take issue with the idea that Trump 'backs the blue' by referencing Jennings' prior condemnation of January 6.
'You look at what Donald Trump did and what MAGA has done to the police officers who defended our Capitol on January 6th,' Setmayer, a former GOP strategist and Never-Trump conservative, declared. 'You want to talk about spitting in the face? Donald Trump spit in the face of every single one of those officers who took that oath to protect and serve on January 6th when he pardoned those insurrectionist bastards and who wanted to take down our Capitol and stop the free and fair, peaceful transfer of power.'
One of the president's first acts after his second inauguration was to issue a blanket pardon to roughly 1,600 rioters who were charged with crimes during the attack on the Capitol, including many who were jailed for violently attacking police officers.
'And so how dare people sit here and say that he backs the blue? He abdicated that, because you know what? He did not protect or defend the Constitution and he violated his oath of office,' she continued. 'You know, who said that? You did after January 6th. And that's exactly what he continues to do right now with the way he is throwing around our military, our police, talking about moving us to other states. This is something people should be very concerned about.'
Indeed, shortly after a MAGA mob stormed the Capitol on January 6 in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory, Jennings wrote a scathing opinion piece for CNN chastising the president and any Republican who didn't rebuke Trump's actions.
'I'm ashamed and embarrassed for our country, and for any Republican who fails to condemn this shameful behavior,' Jennings stated at the time. In an on-air appearance the night of the riot, Jennings also suggested that Trump had become such a threat to the country that he may need to abdicate his office immediately.
On Monday night, however, Jennings was seemingly stunned into silence and merely held his hand to his chin after Setmayer aired her receipts, prompting anchor Anny Phillip to move on to another guest. Several minutes later, though, Phillip circled back to the right-wing pundit to see if he wanted to finally jump back in.
'I want to give Scott a moment because he has not said a single thing,' the CNN host said.
Saying that 'what happened to the cops that day was a disgrace,' Jennings then pivoted to defending Trump's federal takeover of Washington and deployment of the National Guard, adding that 'the only city' that Trump really has control of is Washington.
'If he controls D.C., why didn't he do it on January 6th?' Setmayer shot back. 'Why didn't he do it on January 6th when he sat there and let them take over the Capitol? He had the opportunity, but he didn't.'
Two days later, another longtime political strategist would once again confront Jennings on his harsh criticism of the president's behavior on January 6 as it related to Trump now invoking the D.C. Home Rule Act. This time around, however, Jennings didn't sit in silence and instead lashed out with personal attacks.
'I think in Washington, D.C., you're gonna have to have substantial reductions in violence, substantial reductions in murder, substantial reductions in carjackings, and people are generally gonna feel like they can walk around and not be under threat all the time,' he said, boasting about the number of arrests that have occurred since the takeover.
Julie Roginsky, a Democratic operative and former Fox News pundit, snarked that she was 'old enough' to remember when Jennings was 'appalled as the rest of us were on January 6th,' leading the former Mitch McConnell adviser to cut her off.
'Because January 6th happened, should we not enforce the law today?' Jennings sneered, resulting in a heated back-and-forth in which the GOP commentator accused Roginsky of engaging in a 'silly argument.'
At one point, Phillip jumped in to ask Jennings to allow Roginsky to finish her point, only for the conservative pundit to grouse that he's 'not gonna allow it' if Roginsky kept taking 'potshots' at him.
'Scott, I know you're thirsty for that seat, but let me finish,' Roginsky snapped back, referencing reports that Jennings is considering a Senate run in Kentucky to replace the retiring McConnell.
'What are you thirsty for? Some kind of relevance out here? I mean, I don't even know what you do for a living,' he fumed in response. An undeterred Roginsky, though, continued on with her point following the broadside from Jennings.
'Can I just finish what I was about to say, which is that on January 6th, [Trump] could have deployed the National Guard. He chose not to. Now today, because somebody named Big Balls got beat up, allegedly, he wants to deploy the National Guard to a place that has had a 30-year low in violence. And we all know that he's doing this because it's a power grab.'
Noting that Trump 'could have done this when this district was actually in danger on January 6th' but didn't, Roginsky said the president 'didn't give a d*mn' about 'backing the blue' then before invoking Jennings' past comments.
'And you agreed, back on January 6, he didn't give a d*mn about those police officers and about the safety of people in Washington, D.C.,' she concluded. 'Today, because he wants a power grab, he's doing this despite the fact that every statistic shows that Washington, D. C. has not been safer in the last 30 years.'
Meanwhile, other progressives have called for CNN panelists to continue to challenge Jennings with his own words during discussions about the president's current actions in Washington.
'Not sure why every liberal pundit on CNN, confronted by Jennings, doesn't just read out every night his own words from Jan 6th back to him,' Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan, who recently got into a heated exchange with a NewsNation anchor after invoking January 6, tweeted. 'Jennings called it an insurrection by domestic terrorists caused by Donald Trump. Remind him. Every. Single. Night.'