CNN’s Abby Phillip and Black Panelists Clash With Scott Jennings Over ‘Anti-Woke’ Push — ‘Sounds Like Anti-Black’

CNN anchor Abby Phillip, New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, and CNN analyst Cari Champion challenged CNN analyst and potential Trump spox Scott Jennings over the real meaning of the “anti-woke” buzzword that’s been in the news so much.

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory last week came after years of campaigning against what conservatives call “wokeness” — a theme which has also featured heavily in post-election commentary and Trump’s transition.

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip and her large panel took on the “woke” issue in a segment pegged to Fox News host Pete Hegseth’s ascent to secretary of defense-designate.

When the conversation broadened, Hannah-Jones and Champion observed that the term “anti-wokeness” sounded to them like a stand-in for “anti-Black” and challenged Jennings when he pushed back:

PHILLIP: We wanted to talk about this is because, I mean, obviously in the postmortems of this election, Nikole, there’s a lot of conversation even among Democrats about whether the message, the anti- woke message worked and was the main vehicle actually to bring Trump back to the White House, convincing not — I mean, I think he did about as well with white voters this time as he did the last time, but convincing actually more voters of color, particularly Hispanic men and women to vote for it.

HANNAH-JONES: Yes, I mean, it’s been interesting to see all the postmortems. First argument was this was a vote on economic anxiety. Now, it’s changed to this being a vote, anti-woke vote, which we can’t even define what that means. When I hear anti-woke, I hear anti-Black. And we should also be very clear, as I tweeted about, or posted about earlier this week is that Latino is not a racial group. Latino is a broad category that includes people across the racial spectrum from many different countries. And they — some of them also self-identify as white. In fact, the majority of Latino self-identify as white. So, it shouldn’t be shocking that some of them also are enamored by that message and vote on that message.

But my thing is when we are talking about what is actually woke or anti-woke, the same people who are making that argument are saying the Democrats lost on identity politics.

Well, the anti-woke argument is identity politics. It is white identity politics, and that is what Trump was selling, and that’s what a lot of people are buying. And we should just be honest about that.

CHAMPION: And I don’t think it’s — I think we should be honest. I don’t think that’s out of line for her to say. And Scott, I saw you shake your head. It’s not — it’s not odd for her to say anti-woke sounds like anti-Black. It does sound as if it is about a group of people that you do not want in your party, at your top, with your workforce.

JENNINGS: Did you see the election results?

CHAMPION: I did see the reelection results.

JENNINGS: We just put — we just put the biggest multi-racial coalition together in the history of the Republican Party.

CHAMPION: Let me ask you a question. When you say anti-woke, when you say woke, do you think about a certain class of people, a certain group of people outside of yourself? I’m just asking you that question.

It sounds like that to me because I am a Black woman and I’m speaking from my experience. So, I’m asking you from your experience. When you hear anti-woke or woke, does that identify a group of people? That’s all I’m asking you, because I’m asking you to help me understand so I know what you’re saying.

JENNINGS: I mean, I tend to think about hyper-liberal people who have a fundamental disregard for, you know, the underpinnings about founding of our country and who want to fundamentally change our society in ways that are not in line with a vast majority of American citizens. That’s what I tend to think about.

Later in the segment, Phillip agreed that the “woke” label “sounds like code”:

PHILLIP: I mean —

ARRIGHI: Those weren’t my words.

PHILLIP: Republicans —

ARRIGHI: My point is — my point is —

PHILLIP: –have, non-stop, criticized Lloyd Austin and Secretary of the Army, both of whom are black men in the highest levels of the military and a lot of the arguments is that they’re woke, which, to Cari’s point, it sounds like it’s code for —

CHAMPION: It sounds very much about a group of people that it’s code. It sounds like dog whistle politics. It sounds like you’re talking about a group of black people.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.