A clearly frustrated Scott Jennings clashed with a fellow panelist in a heated CNN debate surrounding rhetoric following Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Jennings, a Trump supporter, appeared on The Arena with Kasie Hunt on Tuesday, alongside a panel including former Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield.
During a discussion on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s latest comments surrounding hate speech, the conversation swiftly moved to talk about political rhetoric and the killer’s alleged texts, revealed earlier Tuesday.
“The idea that we have to be at each other‘s throats politically, I think that‘s a risky… I think that‘s a dangerous place to be,” Bedingfield said, commenting on protecting free speech.
Jennings started to read text messages allegedly sent from the suspect in the shooting, Tyler Robinson, including “I had enough of his hatred” and “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
“He also engraved the words ‘Hey, fascist catch!’ on the bullet,” Jennings said.
On Tuesday, Utah officials released texts allegedly sent by suspect Robinson to his roommate hours after the murder. “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it,” one read, according to police.
Talking on CNN on Tuesday Jennings said, “For 10 years, we have heard nothing from the left but that Donald Trump is a fascist. Republicans are Nazis. Authoritarians destroy the constitution… He‘s been obviously marinating in some kind of information that radicalized him based on what he heard in the air in this country.”
As the pair talked over each other, Bedingfield raised the issue of Melissa Hortman’s killer being a Trump supporter.
As Jennings interrupted, Bedingfield snapped, “could you let me finish my thought, please?”
“Please,” Jennings continued.
The Democratic State Representative from Minnesota was gunned down alongside her husband Mark at their home on June 14. The suspect was a Trump voter, according to his roommate.
“Does that shooter represent the entirety of the MAGA movement?,” Bedingfield said. “Of course not. So why is it acceptable to use this moment to argue that somebody, a sick individual who committed a horrific crime…”
Jennings interrupted, “How do you know [he is sick]?” before adding, “All I know is what the prosecutor said today. He read very lucid messages from a shooter who was motivated by political hate, who had a plan to get away with it. He did not sound like a deranged person.”
Jennings continued, “He sounded like someone who had decided to take it upon himself to rid the world of someone that he hated politically, that he thought that the world would be better off without. That‘s different than some deranged lunatic showing up off the street.”
The pair continued to debate, where Jennings added it was “dangerous and irresponsible” for nobody to take responsibility for “10 years of the use of the language fascism, Nazis, authoritarian and so in. It’s on the bullet case.”
Bedingfield countered that she had seen seen nothing but elected Democrats saying the murder was “awful” and condemning it and expressing sorrow for his family, which Jennings questioned, before she added “I’ve seen President Trump do nothing but say it was the Democrats’ fault.”
When Hunt questioned how much of the internet meme and video game-derived language printed on the suspect’s bullets Jennings understood, he repeated his claims about the left calling the right Nazis. He said the suspect, “I‘ve had enough of his hatred. I‘m only simply suggesting that we stop looking the evidence in the face and saying, gee whiz, what happened here?”
CNN contributor Lulu Garcia-Navarro pointed out Vice President JD Vance and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were among people who had previously compared Trump to Adolf Hitler, with Jennings shaking his head and remaining silent as she spoke.
Garcia-Navarro added, “I think what everyone is reacting to here is the fear that the use of this is going to make it so that you are now targeting people who aren‘t involved in this at all.”
Jennings claimed on X after his CNN appearance “Dems suddenly don’t want to talk about unhinged political rhetoric after a conservative was ASSASSINATED by a killer using language they have been using for YEARS! The gaslighting on the killer’s motive is insane.”
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