CNN’s resident MAGA pundit railed against claims of just how badly President Donald Trump’s war with Iran has hit gas prices in the U.S. before a network anchor knocked the ground out from under him with a brutal last word.
“We’re not in a crisis,” Scott Jennings said at the outset of an on-air feud with Democratic Party adviser Ashley Etienne over rising energy costs during a broadcast of The Source with Kaitlin Collins on Thursday night.
The adviser quickly shot back, telling the former Bush administration official that “yes, we are,” and that “never in our nation’s history have we had such high distrust from our allies and our foes alike,” with “no sort of clarity on where this thing is headed.”
Trump’s war with Iran, launched on February 28 and currently subject to a tentative two-week ceasefire, has plunged the Middle East into chaos and sent global oil prices skyrocketing.
U.S. gas prices, amid massive disruptions to worldwide supply resulting directly from the president’s actions, have soared during that period to a national average of more than $4.16 a gallon, representing an almost 40 percent increase over pre-conflict levels.
Jennings rebuked the Democratic adviser for saying “I paid six bucks for gas just yesterday” by asking “were you in California?” and laughing sarcastically.
When Etienne informed him she had in fact made the purchase in Virginia, he laughed again and said, “Oh! Another blue area!”
Collins then swooped in to point out that the average cost for the price of gasoline in Nevada—which swung for Trump in the 2024 polls and where the president had, only that afternoon, delivered a speech bigging up his tax cuts and other economic policies—currently stands at $5 a gallon.
“Ashley Etienne, Scott Jennings, thank you both for being here,” Collins then said, ending the segment. Etienne thanked her in turn. Jennings, for his part, did not.
