CNN’s resident MAGA pundit went totally blank when confronted with the massive allegations of corruption leveled against his would-be boss, Donald Trump.
Scott Jennings, 48, was speaking on The Fifth Column podcast when the topic came up on Wednesday. One of the hosts, Michael Moynihan, put it to the former George W. Bush aide directly: “Does Donald Trump and the Trump administration have a corruption problem?”
Jennings, among the frontrunners to replace Karoline Leavitt as White House press secretary, very conspicuously proceeded to not answer, leaving it to hang for five whole seconds of dead air before he finally countered: “Erm… that’s a very generic question. I mean, is there something…?”
Moynihan then pressed him on a few examples, including 80-year-old Trump’s decision to pardon a crypto-billionaire convicted of money laundering, who also happens to have business ties to the president’s sons.
Other case studies included the amount the first family has raked in from digital assets over the past year, as Trump has rolled back regulations on the industry, as well as reports that Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding was paid for in part by an oligarch tied to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The conversation then drifted toward Jennings’ previous attacks on Hunter Biden, the disgraced son of former President Joe Biden, before he eventually threw in the towel.
“I’ll be candid with you,” he said. “This is not my social world. I don’t necessarily exist in that world. I’m generally… I’m just a son of a garbage man from Kentucky. But my general expectation is that they should follow all the applicable laws and ethics regulations, and I believe that they are.”
The MAGA pundit has spent weeks using media appearances to publicly audition to become Trump’s next press secretary after 29-year-old Leavitt stepped down last month to spend more time with her young children.
Jennings gained momentum after reports that he held private talks with Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, who’s understood to have thrown her weight behind him as her chosen candidate for the job.
Trump has still not publicly named a permanent replacement nearly four weeks after Leavitt’s departure. Senior administration figures, including Vice President JD Vance, have instead rotated through briefing duties while the search continues.
