CNN regular risks career to condemn network's pandering to 'rude' Scott Jennings
Frequent CNN analyst Julie Roginsky unloaded on the network for allowing Scott Jennings, it's in-house pro-Trump conservative commentator, to be rude to his opponents while engaging in bad-faith arguments during his appearances.
Along the way, Roginsky noted that his abusive treatment of women without penalty has given rise to a belief among some outside female analysts that they have been blackballed for criticizing him.
On her Substack, Roginsky wrote that she likely will be “banned from CNN’s airwaves” for going public and making her case against Jennings, whom she called an “insecure little boy.”
Jennings landed his spot on the network as a GOP insider with close ties to former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and, having once been a mild critic of Donald Trump, now toes the MAGA line.
According to Roginsky, Jennings has been given free rein to glibly spout falsehoods while smirking for the camera.
Noting that Jennings is not problematic because he is a Republican, she said, “The problem is how he behaves, what he contributes, and what his presence signals about what CNN now tolerates.”
Complaining that Jennings does not debate, she insisted, "He blathers. He talks over women with particular frequency, interrupts relentlessly, and treats panel discussions as contests of volume and obstinacy, rather than as exchanges of ideas. He mugs to the camera and rolls his eyes, while calling any fact he does not like a lie. It is performative obstruction — the cable news equivalent of flipping the board when you’re losing the game,” she accused.
Roginsky focused on the conservative pundit's treatment of female panelists, which she claims has not gone unnoticed.
“Jennings has cultivated a reputation — not just among viewers, but among female guests — for being rude, dismissive, and antagonistic in ways that feel personal rather than substantive. His dynamic is familiar: interrupt, sneer, accuse, repeat. If challenged successfully, escalate the aggression,” she observed before claiming, “CNN executives know this. They see the segments and receive the feedback. They understand the pattern. And yet, the network continues to book him, elevate him, and protect him.”
She added, “Several women who have appeared on CNN panels have spoken privately about how they are suddenly never invited back after embarrassing him on air.”
Making it personal, she wrote, “Jennings is also an insecure little boy, the kind of teenager who sat home alone on a Saturday night cutting and pasting photographs of himself alongside girls who would never give him the time of day to make it appear that he had a robust social life. That is essentially what he does every time he goes on air. He selectively edits clips to make it look like he ‘owned’ whomever he was debating, too chickens—t to post the whole segment that would expose the truth. Aside from his collection of mouth-breathing Twitter acolytes, no one buys it.”
Taking aim at the network, she asked, “CNN should ask itself a simple question: what is Scott Jennings adding that could not be accomplished by any number of conservative analysts who are capable of making arguments without bad faith theatrics?”
“Every time CNN allows a panel to devolve into Jennings shouting over his colleagues and guests, it trades credibility for clicks. Every time it lets misleading claims slide in the name of “balance,” it trains viewers not to trust what they’re seeing. And every time it tolerates conduct that makes guests — especially women — feel disrespected, it reinforces the perception that the network values spectacle over professionalism,” she warned.
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