CNN’s MAGA contributor Scott Jennings has been condemned for suggesting he doesn’t care that the people of Washington, D.C., overwhelmingly oppose Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the capital.
“I don’t care what they think. I mean, these are the same people who elected the mayor and city council that ran the city’s public safety into the ground in the first place,” Jennings said during a NewsNight panel discussion. “They don’t know what’s good for them. I do not care one bit.”
NewsNight host Abby Phillip had gone to Jennings for his views after noting a “stark divide” between D.C. residents and the Trump administration, which ordered the federal takeover of the city’s police force and deployed hundreds of National Guard troops to patrol the streets in a bid to reduce crime.
Phillip cited The Washington Post polling showing 79 percent of D.C. residents oppose the takeover and the use of the National Guard and FBI agents to patrol the city.
Vice President JD Vance—who was roundly booed and jeered during a visit to Union Station on Wednesday alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—also insisted the Trump administration knows what’s best for D.C. when asked about the poll numbers.
“I’m highly skeptical that a majority of DC residents don’t want their city to have better public safety and more reasonable safety standards,” Vance said.
Phillip, astounded by Jennings’ “I don’t care” retort, pressed him again while pointing to The Post survey showing that 61 percent of D.C. residents say additional federal officers on their streets make them feel “less safe.”
Jennings doubled down and argued that tourists, not just residents, should have a say in whether the federal takeover is justified.
“Why would they say that? They’re out arresting criminals, they’re arresting illegal aliens. They’re getting illegal guns off the streets. They’re obviously safer,” Jennings said.
“But, you know, there’s another population that cares about public safety in D.C.. It’s all the people who visit there. We have people that go there, millions of people from all over the country.
“They deserve to go to a national capital that’s not in disgrace and despair, and that’s what they’re doing in Washington, so I don’t really care about what they think.”
Elsewhere in the debate, liberal commentator Adam Mockler called Jennings’ position that public policy shouldn’t serve D.C. residents as “absolutely absurd.”
“Why don’t we mobilize the National Guard to the eight out of 10 red states that are the highest homicide states?” Mockler added. “If this decreases crime, and that’s sufficient enough to mobilize a national guard against the explicit will of the people of DC, why isn’t the National Guard not marching through the streets [elsewhere]?”
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