CNN Analyst Scolds Scott Jennings Over His Facial Expression As She Slams X: ‘No One’s Regulating The N-Word!’

CNN analyst Cari Champion scolded Republican CNN analyst Scott Jennings over his facial expression as she described harassment she has endured on X/Twitter, exclaiming “Please don’t give me the eyebrow furrow!”

Elon Musk has been trolling on X/Twitter about purchasing MSNBC, which is being spun off from Comcast, and has also confirmed that his platform has been throttling posts that link to outside media — all as he prepares to take power as part of President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, anchor Abby Phillip and her large panel battled over the implications of Musk’s ascent in a contentious discussion.

In one exchange, Champion described the free-for-all atmosphere on X, and took exception to Jennings’s non-verbal reaction:

JENNINGS: But isn’t the issue that the left has gotten so used to controlling almost all institutional information distribution arms in this country that when one little piece of it, whether it’s X or MSNBC or anything else gets taken away, the panic is so outrageous?

UNKNOWN: No, no, I think —

JENNINGS: I mean, that’s how used to the left is, is having control of all of it.

ASHLEY ALLISON: I don’t think that that’s an accurate assessment when you look at something like Sinclair Broadcasting Group that has purchased most of the local newspapers and local television stations and sends out distributed information that their anchors are supposed to follow for the correspondents. That is a conservative-leaning group.

I think the difference, though, I’m not siding with Elon Musk at all here. The one thing to point out is that platforms are not regulated right now, which gives them car blanche, whatever they want right now. Elon is not someone who likes to be regulated. And so, to buy MSN, he would go under some federal regulations.

GERAGHTY: Who’s regulating CNN right now?

UNKNOWN: The FCC?

GERAGHTY: We’re not a broadcast. It’s cable.

JENNINGS: I mean, I don’t really think, I don’t really think cable stations are under the same regulatory structure that broadcast is.

ALLISON: It’s definitely regulated more than Facebook and Twitter.

CHAMPION: What she’s saying is that there’s still a litmus test of journalism that you have to pass. You can’t come on TV and just make up things and say things. That happens on X. Please don’t give me the eyebrow furrow as if you don’t know what I’m talking about. It happens often on X.

I can go and say the color is blue, and I will be met with so many disrespectful remarks. No one’s regulating the N-word. No one’s regulating the criticism. No one is regulating how people are treated.

JENNINGS: How much government regulation of the First Amendment are you for?

CHAMPION: Let me tell you something. If I came on here and I just started calling you all kinds of names, do you think the bosses would let me continue to do that?

JENNINGS: I mean, it happens to me occasionally.

CHAMPION: It doesn’t happen to you, but it doesn’t happen to you from me. And I know that I wouldn’t be able to do that. There’s a level of professionalism in what we do here because we are journalists, and we adhere to something, at least morally. And there is no moral compass on this thing called X.

CORNISH: You’re also having a conversation about a person who has the ear of the White House in a very profound way, and you have had the former president, the president-elect, talking about yanking licenses, right, as part of the broader Republican argument.

CHAMPION: If you disagree.

CORNISH: Yes, that there is censorship, and therefore people need to be punished for that censorship.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.