CNN’s Scott Jennings Scolds Trump Over Rant About Shooting Media — Because It Made Him Fear For Trump
CNN anchor Kate Bolduan asked Scott Jennings to weigh in on ex-President Donald Trump’s crack about a would-be assassin having to “shoot through” the media, and Jennings said he “didn’t like” it — but not because of the threat to the press.
With only hours to go before Election Day, the dominant storyline is the bombshell Des Moines Register poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of Trump in Iowa, but Trump’s rally antics are never far from the headlines.
For example, Trump told an approving crowd at a rally in Lititz, Pennsylvania that “to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news. And I don’t mind that so much.”
On Monday’s edition of CNN News Central, Jennings reacted by scolding Trump — not for joking about reporters being shot but for evoking the triggering specter of another attempt on Trump, and adding “he’s the one that got shot, not me”:
BOLDUAN: But let’s play a game of this or that. When it comes to Donald Trump and kind of the darker — the dark rhetoric — angry rhetoric that we’ve heard in the last couple of days, which is more, do you think, dangerous politically and maybe just literally?
And the this is him stoking fears already about voter fraud in Pennsylvania, literally suggesting already at a rally that they’re already cheating in Pennsylvania without any foundation. And the that is this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have this piece of glass here, but all we have really over here is the fake news, right? And to get me, somebody would have to shoot through the fake news, and I don’t mind that so much because — I don’t mind. I don’t mind that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: This or that?
JENNINGS: Well, on the voter registration stuff there is an investigation going on —
BOLDUAN: Um-hum.
JENNINGS: About some fraudulent voter registration. There’s also one apparently going on in Arizona, too.
BOLDUAN: Voter registration that has no suggestion that has anything to do with ballots.
JENNINGS: I know, but there is an underpinning to what he is saying and —
BOLDUAN: No, but his underpinning was also why are they extending the hours when the Republican Party were the ones who filed a challenge to extend hours in Bucks County.
JENNINGS: Well, but the — yeah, but Republicans were trying to vote there. I mean — I mean, their — I mean, did the RNC win this?
BOLDUAN: He’s mad that they are extending the hours.
JENNINGS: Well, I know. But I’m saying that there was a reason that the RNC went to court there to —
BOLDUAN: I understand that as well.
JENNINGS: Look, the reality is there have been a few things. But that doesn’t necessarily mean, and we should not assume that there is not going to be a free and fair election. I believe there is going to be a free and fair election in this country. And so — and I hope that we get a count quickly enough that it doesn’t undermine confidence.
And on the other issue I’ll be honest. I don’t like it because I was very critical of the people who were I think inciting or saying things that could incite violence against Donald Trump himself.
BOLDUAN: Um-hum.
JENNINGS: And so I just — I don’t like the idea — and look, maybe he feels like he can joke about it because he’s the one that got shot. But I just don’t like the idea —
JONES: Yeah.
JENNINGS: — that we would raise the specter of that ever happening again because I think it was one of the worst days of this campaign when he got shot and we came within a quarter of an inch of something cataclysmic happening in this country.
JONES: Yeah.
JENNINGS: And I just — again, he’s the one that got shot, not me. But I just — I don’t like the idea of even joking about it truthfully.
Watch above via CNN News Central.
