One of Donald Trump’s fiercest TV defenders got into a heated clash with a CNN host over the fallout of the president’s war with Iran.
Scott Jennings, 48, was discussing the price of diesel with other panelists when Abby Phillip, 37, brought him up on the cause of those soaring costs.
At one point, the host told Jennings he could “just let go of the bad argument.” He immediately shot back: “You could let go of the fact that you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tehran has responded to the 80-year-old president’s military campaign by shuttering the Strait of Hormuz, a vital naval corridor through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies pass each year. Gas prices have skyrocketed as a result, with diesel reaching a record high of $6.529 a gallon earlier this month.
Jennings, who’s widely said to be angling to replace Karoline Leavitt as Trump’s press secretary after Leavitt left in August, began on Wednesday night by suggesting that the higher costs are partly due to a lack of refining capacity in the U.S.
Phillips promptly told him his argument was beside the point. “Even if we built a diesel refinery tomorrow, that’s not really what has caused diesel prices to skyrocket,” she said. “Oh, it’s a big part of it,” he replied.
Phillip pushed Jennings to concede that Trump’s war is the bigger driver of higher costs because U.S. refining capacity remains “the same today as it was a few months ago, when diesel was cheaper.”
The pair continued to talk over one another for a full minute, during which Jennings accused Phillip of not truly understanding the debate. The host found a brief break to accuse the conservative of pushing “a false argument” before Jennings began repeatedly interrupting her again.
“It’s a silly argument, and it’s not even true,” Phillips said toward the end of the debate. “You’re saying a lack of domestic refineries led to a rise in oil and gas prices—that’s just not true!”
