Scott Jennings Actually Said 1 Trump Move 'Wasn't' Smart

CNN pundit Scott Jennings criticized President Donald Trump after CNN reporters were denied access to the White House dinner arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.

When host Anderson Cooper asked about the move, the cable channel’s Republican heel said it “wasn’t” smart of the president. Jennings called the situation “a miss” and said a judge’s order earlier in the day for Trump and his administration to restore press credentials after they banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico should have been followed “immediately.”

Jennings, a Trump loyalist who’s reportedly a candidate to succeed Karoline Leavitt as press secretary, delicately toed the line with the president this week amid Trump’s barring of news outlets.

In one appearance, he appeared to weasel out of directly denouncing the president for the ban while softly defending CNN as a legitimate outlet. But he also made clear he “strongly disagreed” with CNN’s “framing” of issues around the president. On a recent podcast, he hesitated and verbally danced after being asked if Trump had a “corruption problem.”

But he showed more forthrightness in his exchange with Cooper on Thursday.

“Scott, was this smart of the president?” Cooper asked. “I mean, this was a big event he wanted covered, and he’s not getting the coverage.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Jennings answered. “This was a predictable outcome, by the way, in court this morning. Glad to see Kaitlan [Collins] back on the White House grounds. But if you’re President Trump or you support President Trump, you want him to get all the coverage that you would want to get from something like this. You’d want him not to be muted. You’d want him to be fully available and projecting to the American people. And you’re not getting that right now. So, that’s a miss.”

He then appeared to scold Trump and his administration for not completely following the judge’s decision while schooling them on public relations.

“I think legal judgments ought to be followed,” Jennings said. “So when judges make decisions, we ought to follow those immediately. I’m glad we’re back on the grounds tonight. But overall, as a strategic matter, just as a communications person, I wouldn’t want to put my client or a principal in a position where they’re not getting all the coverage that either they want or the American people, in this case, would deserve, because we’re talking about a government official.”

Trump railed at CNN for not covering the Chinese leader’s initial arrival at the White House, yet the White House claimed CNN’s exclusion from the dinner was because it was a “pre-credentialed event.”

“Contrary to what the Fake News wants you to believe, they don’t just get to have free rein into every part of the White House, every event, and every press call,” Trump’s Rapid Response team wrote.