Accusing CNN political commentator Scott Jennings of attempting to create a viral moment during a heated exchange on the Daniel Penny trial, correspondent Audie Cornish told the right-wing pundit that he wanted “a clip for the internet” while mockingly posing for a picture.
During Tuesday night’s broadcast of CNN NewsNight, the panel debated over Penny being acquitted in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man with mental health issues who acted threateningly towards subway passengers. The verdict was met with both applause and anger, with conservatives saying “justice has prevailed” and calling Penny a “hero.”
After former Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera claimed that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “made a political decision to go after this white Marine because of his constituency,” Cornish jumped in to ask about the fact that a person tragically died during this encounter.
“Then what do you say to the parents of a victim who dies in this circumstance? You just say, ‘Hey, sorry?’… This is not me saying it’s good or bad, but prosecutors do go after people all the time for a variety of things,” she wondered.
“You keep referring to Neely as the victim,” Jennings reacted. “I think Penny is the victim in this case, and I think the people on that train are the victim!”
Saying she knows that Jennings sees it that way, Cornish then noted that she tends to call people who have died a victim.
“We have different ideas about that,” she added. “But to my mind, someone lost a child, and I’m always going to feel for that person. That‘s just how I’m built. It’s like a Christian thing.”
In an apparent effort to escalate things, Jennings wondered if Cornish was saying he wasn’t a Christian, prompting the former NPR anchor to reply: “Not at all. I just want to make sure that you understand it’s a values-based comment.”
At that point, Jennings then suggested that Cornish was saying he doesn’t “have any values.” Cornish, meanwhile, fired back by referencing the pro-Trump pundit’s reputation for inserting himself into fiery cable news debates that inevitably result in social media posts and online writeups.
“He needs a clip for the internet,” she snarked while smiling at the camera and pretending to frame herself in a picture.
While Jennings appeared to stew over the snipe, Cornish continued: “But in the meantime, the reason why I’m saying it is because what do you say to a family when someone has died, and you’re the prosecutor?”
While Jennings may have been on the losing end of this particular cable news fight, he has only seen his star rise since Donald Trump won this past election. Besides being the most prominent defender of the president-elect on CNN’s airwaves, his pugnaciousness has also led to a high-profile gig at the Los Angeles Times.
After nixing his paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the election, prompting multiple editors and columnists to bolt, LA Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong said he wanted to add more conservatives to the editorial board and asked Jennings to become a member. Soon-Shiong also recently told Jennings during a podcast of his intention to add a “bias meter” to the Times’ articles to ensure readers get “both sides” of the story, sparking outrage among the paper’s journalists.
