NewsNation host Chris Cuomo brought the receipts as he went after his finger-pointing former CNN colleague Scott Jennings.
Jennings, 48, is still catching flak over his F-bomb tirade against progressive commentator Adam Mockler on CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip last Thursday.
The pair engaged in a heated debate where Mockler, 23, repeatedly challenged the MAGA pundit to “name a single political concession” President Donald Trump had extracted from Iran in two months of war.
After Jennings made what Mockler said were “condescending” remarks about his “bedtime” and his having “the attention span of a gnat,” the MeidasTouch contributor asked the conservative again, “Name me one political concession...”
A furious Jennings snapped at Mockler, “Get your f---ing hand out of my face, first of all!”
The F-bomb had former CNN colleagues demanding Jennings lose his job, although he returned to NewsNight on Tuesday, this time without Mockler.
Discussing the personal space showdown on Tuesday’s Cuomo, the host referred to Jennings as “CNN’s resident MAGA-lomaniac”— and produced previous evidence of him getting in other people’s faces.
Cuomo, 55, said Jennings had snapped after he was called out “for the nonsense being peddled about the war” from the Trump administration.
“What 48-year-old man talks to a kid 25 years younger than him like that?” Cuomo asked. “One who’s got nothing else.”
The NewsNation host then referenced Jennings’ past role as deputy director in the office of political affairs at the White House, working under President George W. Bush at the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.
Cuomo said since Jennings worked for the administration “that sold us the BS about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you would think he would have some type of shame—but there’s no shame in the game, and he knows how to play the rage-bait game.”
Then Cuomo presented the receipts: airing CNN footage from Oct. 7, 2024, when Jennings was arguing with academic Michael Eric Dyson. During their fiery interaction, Jennings snapped at Dyson, “I don’t answer to you,” and pointed his finger in Dyson’s face.
Dyson told Jennings, “You put your finger in my face, and you are aggressive.”
Jennings then told Dyson, who is Black, “You gonna ask me for my number after the show? Brother, don’t start with me.”
Speaking on Tuesday after playing the 2024 clips, Cuomo said of Jennings, “What a punk!”
“He did the same thing,” Cuomo said of the personal space invasion. “Now, what’s different is Michael Eric Dyson is looking at him with contempt. He handled it differently because he has a better handle on adulting than Jennings, but also because he had the facts and the law on his side.”
Reacting to the backlash to Jennings’ interaction with Mockler, Cuomo added, “I don’t want bad things for him, I wish him well and I don’t want him fired.”
He continued, “It’s all just a distraction from his true deficiency. He can’t justify what’s happening in Iran beyond ‘The regime sucks’.”
Mockler himself also appeared on Tuesday’s Cuomo, where he said that he believed Jennings’ intense reaction to him was “a genuine, serious moment.”
He said, “I sat with him at... that same table week after week after week and then listen to him lie about the timelines of the war, not bound to any sort of facts or even decorum.”
Referring to how Jennings behaves as NewsNight’s token conservative, Mockler said “He’s a big a--hole on that show. I’m gonna say it. He’s the one who is constantly smug and condescending. That’s his entire bit.”
He added. “So, for this to blow up, because I give him the energy that he gives other people, just blows my mind in my opinion. And I hope that’s understandable.”
The Daily Beast has contacted CNN for comment.
