CNN’s MAGA panelist Scott Jennings failed to give a straight answer when asked if he thought Donald Trump’s threat to “annihilate” Iran was acceptable.
During a typically argumentative roundtable debate on NewsNight, Jennings was pressed by host Abby Phillip about the 79-year-old’s unhinged rhetoric against the Middle Eastern country before a two-week ceasefire was agreed to on Tuesday night.
“Scott, for the record, do you think it’s acceptable for the president to threaten to annihilate a civilization?” Phillip asked.
“I think it’s acceptable for the commander-in-chief to deal with these people in the best way that he can, in order to achieve a result,” Jennings replied.
When Phillip pressed him further on whether he had a “yes or a no” response, Jennings continued: “I’m not going to second-guess him. He put out a statement. We now have a ceasefire.”
“I just wanted to ask for the record. A yes on your part, we’ll leave it there,” the CNN host replied, to which Jennings did not attempt to object.
There were calls to remove Trump from office using the 25th Amendment following the president’s deranged threats toward Iran ahead of his arbitrary deadline of 8 p.m. on Tuesday to reach a deal on the conflict, including reopening the Strait of Hormuz shipping route.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” the president wrote in a Tuesday morning Truth Social post. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Trump had previously threatened that the U.S. would escalate its attacks on Iran by targeting bridges and power plants to help end the deeply unpopular war, which some critics claimed would amount to a war crime.
The erratic president had also urged Tehran to “Open the f---in’ Strait, you crazy b-----ds, or you’ll be living in Hell,” and warned Iran the U.S. would send the country of 90 million people back to the “Stone Age” unless a deal was made.
Just under two hours before Trump’s deadline, Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire deal, which includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
“There will be lots of positive action! Big money will be made. Iran can start the reconstruction process,” Trump wrote on social media after the announcement. “We’ll be loading up with supplies of all kinds, and just ‘hangin’ around’ in order to make sure that everything goes well.”
During his Tuesday CNN appearance, Jennings suggested the ceasefire meant Trump’s threats against Iran were justified.
“The president uses some extreme language, and all of a sudden, voilà, tonight we had a ceasefire for two weeks,” Jennings said.
“Why can’t we just say, you know what? Maybe we have achieved military objectives. Maybe we have taken down their military and their ability to export terror. Maybe we have decimated their missiles. Maybe we buried their nuclear material, and maybe we’ve got two weeks to make the world a safer place,” he added. “Why can’t we look at this as a glass-half-full moment?”
