CNN MAGA correspondent Scott Jennings was accused of being a Donald Trump “shill” so that he could secure favors from the president, like hitching a ride on Air Force One.
During a heated discussion on Wednesday’s edition of Newsnight with Abby Phillip, former GOP operative Ana Navarro lost her cool after Jennings downplayed the president’s autocratic tendencies.
“Donald Trump campaigned on being the retribution, right? That was actually a word he used,” said Navarro. “He campaigned on the fact he was going to be a dictator. Guess what? He‘s living up to what he promised, to [deliver] retribution and to act as a dictator.”
“Oh, come on. Come on, Ana. He did not promise to be a dictator,” Jennings responded, brushing off his co-panelist’s insistence that those were his exact words.
“You still don‘t get it. All these months later, the left still doesn’t get it,” he added, shooting a knowing glance at the camera for approval.
But Navarro shot back: “Listen, I‘m not going to shill for him, even if it doesn‘t get me a ride on Air Force One.”
During an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity in December 2023, Trump said he would be a dictator for “day one only.”
“I love this guy,” Trump said of Hannity at the time. “He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’”
Elsewhere on Newsnight, Jennings was accused of being a “Photoshop denier” over his attempts to defend Trump’s insistence that doctored images which showed wrongfully-deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia sporting gang tattoos were the real thing.
Navarro asked Jennings: “Are you saying the ‘MS13’ that Donald Trump claims are legitimate tattoos on this guy are true? Are you saying the Photoshop — “
“Are you a tattoo truther?” Jennings interjected. “I mean, I don‘t understand.”
“Are you a Photoshop denier?” Navarro hit back, before the conversation was shut down by host Abby Phillip.
Jennings briefly appeared onstage at a Trump rally in Michigan on Wednesday night to mark the president’s first 100 days in office, where he was thanked by Trump for “defending me all the time on CNN.”
Addressing the crowd assembled in Warren, Trump said of Jennings: “We have a man here that, I don’t know, but he’s defending me all the time on CNN, and he defends me really well, but he can’t go too far, because if he goes too far, he’ll get fired.”
“I said, you’re amazing. You can take it right to the edge, and he really does a good job. He’s not allowed to go any further. He would be off. You know, he really went totally crazy, which he’d like to do. But I think he’s terrific. Scott Jennings,” Trump continued, before inviting him on-stage.
Jennings kept his appearance brief, and used his limited time on the mic to flub a joke about “owning libs.”
He told the crowd: “We were flying in here today, and I said, look at these farms. I got to get a farm in Michigan, because when you own as many libs as I do, you got to put a place to put them all. Thank you all very much.”
Trump added: “Come here, Scott. Oh. CNN, this is the end of Scott. Who cares? Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you, Scott. Scott Jennings, he’s really great.”
The post Scott Jennings Accused of Shilling for Trump to Get a Ride on Air Force One appeared first on The Daily Beast.
