CNN’s MAGA darling was challenged to a face-to-face duel by a “Never Trumper” after his mockery of the president behind the scenes was exposed.
Former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh, 64, tore into “MAGA tough guy” Scott Jennings, 48. On Wednesday, Walsh challenged Jennings to a debate—on Jim Acosta’s Substack—after Jennings was accused of mocking President Donald Trump off the air.
“I would love nothing f---ing better than to just sit at a table with him and call him out for what he is, respectfully,” Walsh told Mediate journalist Tommy Christopher in a Substack interview.
On Tuesday, former Trump administration official Miles Taylor described Jennings as “a pundit who mocks Trump with us during commercial breaks — but fawns over Trump when the camera is rolling.”
Walsh threw his weight behind Taylor’s description.
“I can corroborate generally with what Miles said. Scott Jennings is a fraud. He’s an actor playing a role,” Walsh said to Christopher. “He found out that he can make a s—tload of money by being a MAGA tough guy and that’s what he’s done.”
Walsh also branded Jennings a “protected asset” of CNN. The conservative commentator has been at the network since 2017.
“I think it’s just disappointing for CNN and folks to give him that platform because he doesn’t believe what he says. I’d rather have true believer MAGA folk on those shows than somebody like Jennings,” Walsh said.
“He’s paid to play a role and he looks at the camera and he smirks and he says crazy s–t,” he continued.
He then challenged Jennings to a debate—and called on former CNN star correspondent Acosta to host it.
The former Republican lawmaker was a staunch Trump supporter in 2016—then ran against him in the GOP presidential primary four years later. In 2024, he urged Republicans to vote for Joe Biden in his bid to turn voters away from Trump.
Jennings, meanwhile, opposed Trump during the 2016 election cycle but has since become one of the president’s most ardent defenders, whether on TV or online.
Even before Jennings was called out for mocking Trump off-air, Walsh had already been blasting him as “somebody who’s on TV every day saying things he doesn’t believe.”
“Man, it pays right now in politics to say what you don’t believe—to bulls–t, to lie, to exaggerate, to toss out fake outrage, to say, ‘My team’s right no matter what. Trump’s right no matter what,’ even when you don’t believe it,” he wrote in December last year. “That’s what Scott Jennings has become. And that’s so bad for our politics.”
CNN and Jennings did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
