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With new layoffs, declining ratings and a hefty judgment in a defamation lawsuit, things look somber at CNN, even as America’s first 24-hour news network seeks to reverse its fortunes by reshuffling the deck — or rearranging the deck chairs, as the network’s critics might prefer to say. Anchor Jim Acosta is on his way out, among others.
But there is one person on CNN having a glorious time. He is the punniest guy in cable news, while also a much needed voice of reason.
Here’s Scott Jennings addressing another commentator howling about Elon Musk’s awkward arm gesture, which some likened to a Nazi salute: “You’re not one of the salute truthers, are you?”
There he is complaining about the Episcopal bishop who ignited controversy when she addressed the newly inaugurated president: “These Woke-apalians or Espica-wokians or whatever they’re calling themselves today … Donald Trump, I’m sure regrets participating in this event today to be lectured to and politicized in a church this way.”
In terms of good-natured affability and stinging soundbites, Scott Jennings has emerged as the James Carville of the right. And — bad news for Democrats — Carville, while still very much in the picture, is past retirement age, while Jennings, at 47, is ascendant.
In fact, despite having a distinguished resume that includes working for the George W. Bush White House, the father of four seems to have burst onto the national stage out of nowhere. It’s not unusual for people singing his praises on social media to say they’ve never heard of him before. He is the embodiment of the adage that it takes 20 years of hard work to become an “overnight” success.
“I seriously cannot get enough of Scott Jennings,” one person on X recently wrote. Another wrote, “I wish I could buy stock in Scott Jennings because there’s not really anyone else like him right now” and went on to compare Jennings to the beloved character Jim Halpert (played by John Krasinski) on “The Office.”
I’m not the only one who wishes CNN would give Jennings his own three-hour show.
The real evidence of Jennings’ star power, however, is not the accolades of conservatives, many of whom have been deriding CNN as “fake news” since the first Trump administration. It’s the loathing that he’s inspiring on the left, with some people saying they’ve stopped watching CNN because of him. The writer Anne Lamott called him “the single most repellent person on non-Fox tv.”
Back in November, some Jennings fans were lobbying for his appointment as White House press secretary, which would have severely limited his options. Now, he’s joined the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times at the invitation of owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, in addition to having his own podcast ("Flyover Country with Scott Jennings“), and he has a family and chickens to take care of.
Yes, chickens. Per the website of the political communications firm he co-founded, RunSwitch Public Relations, “Scott and his family raise a growing flock, routinely fighting off hungry hawks and delivering eggs to their friends and family.”
As they say, we need to protect this man at all costs.
A ‘sharp and conspicuous turn to the right’?
In his newsletter this week, FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver wrote:
“The media is making a sharp and conspicuous turn to the right, from Meta eliminating its fact-checking program and DEI initiatives to Jeff Bezos quashing the Post’s endorsement of Harris and Saturday Night Live poking fun at its sibling network, MSNBC. The left’s constellation of A-list celebrities aren’t interesting or cool in a way that pays political dividends: Joe Rogan’s endorsement seems to have mattered more than Taylor Swift’s.”
It’s hard to imagine anyone writing a year ago that the U.S. media is shifting to the right. In fact, the idea is still kind of absurd.
Yes, newspapers in urban hubs on both the East and West Coast have decided they need conservative voices on their editorial boards (Mary Anna Mancuso at the Miami Herald, the latest), and yes, Jeet Heer wrote for The Nation that CNN has “surrendered” to Trump, and across the pond, The Guardian is taking pot shots at the The Washington Post and other U.S. publications.
But it’s hard to see all this as anything but a tentative course correction toward something resembling neutrality or fairness. In many newsrooms populated by liberal journalists, the needle had moved so far left that it would take hiring a platoon of Scott Jennings to move the needle a tick or two to the right.
Jennings, by the way, like Tucker Carlson, considers himself a journalist, which would cause many of my fellow old-school journalists to either seethe or burst into laugher. But Elon Musk says we’re all the media now, and he’s not entirely wrong.
The latest variation of MAGA
“I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vice President JD Vance said last week at the national March for Life, in his first public remarks since the inauguration. The speech was quickly dubbed “Make America Mate Again” by those always looking for a new variation of Trump’s signature slogan.
Vance also mentioned what he called “behavioral challenges” with his three children on Inauguration Day, perhaps most significantly his 7-year-old impudently patting both his mother and father on the head while they were seated with the president. Just a few years ago, Prince Louis presented similar “behavioral challenges” to Prince William and Kate Middleton during Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebration.
Less challenging was JD and Usha Vance’s daughter, Mirabel, who made headlines for the Bluey bandages on her fingers. It’s unclear if they were emotional support Band-Aids or medically necessary, but it was, as Emily Zanotti said, “an iconic toddler move” by a child whose birth was announced on Twitter and who was featured in Vance’s sweetest campaign ad when he was running for the Senate.
It’s been fascinating to see how their families have softened the edges around the president and the vice president. At the Republican National Convention last summer, Trump’s campaign team started playing up the fact that he is a grandfather, and a beloved one at that. While that couldn’t erase the more unsavory aspects of Trump’s behavior over decades, it was a side of Trump that most people had never thought about. “To me, he’s just a normal grandpa. He gives us candy and soda when our parents aren’t looking,” Kai Trump said in Milwaukee.
And their behavior notwithstanding, Vance’s children have won hearts. Detroit News columnist Kaitlyn Buss wrote that “the Vances are fun to watch and a breath of fresh air on the world scene.”
And she’s right. After so much talk in recent years about parents being under stress to the point of the surgeon general calling it a public health concern, it’s nice to see young parents clearly in love with each other, their life and their kids. To see them making families fun again, even when it’s hard.
And — no pressure or anything, Vice President and Mrs. Vance — but a newborn in the vice president’s house would be great, too. Maybe around the time of the midterms.
Recommended reading
Mariya Manzhos talked to author Kurt Gray about why everyone is so outraged: “When you say that someone’s 100% the victim, that kind of annihilates any chance for conversation, for finding common ground. What you need is a little bit of moral humility to move off 100 to zero, even to 99.”
https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/01/27/outraged-book-kurt-gray-morality-harm/
Patrick T. Brown on how the GOP can deliver the most important of Trump’s campaign promises: “If the president were to prioritize, say, an expanded Child Tax Credit and no tax on tips as the two signature victories in a tax bill, that would help Republicans find the requisite revenue options to make this happen.”
Worth watching
Scholar and author Jonathan Rauch recently visited the yellow couch at the Deseret News’ office in Salt Lake City to talk about the “dumbest thing I’ve every published” and how he’s changed his mind about religion since then. “Christianity, specifically white Protestantism, is a load-bearing wall in our democracy,” he now says, and the decline of religious participation has led to partisanship emerging as a new religion.
My latest
A partisan pitch for donations led me to look into how a U.K. newspaper, The Guardian, is positioning itself as the face of Trump resistance in the United States.
https://www.deseret.com/opinion/2025/01/25/the-guardian-trump-resistance-meme-coin-journalism/