Why CNN Executives Are Really Selling Out Their Network to Protect Scott Jennings

Inside the quiet calculus of ownership politics, a foreign government, and a commentator who knows he’s untouchable

CNN is not going to fire Scott Jennings for his profanity-laced outburst on Thursday night or for his myriad other temper tantrums, mostly directed at women. It is not because he is indispensable or because he is enlightening — nor is it because he is converting Fox viewers into CNN loyalists.

As several media outlets have reported, many of his colleagues loathe Scott Jennings. It is not because he is a Trumper. There are other pundits at CNN who support Donald Trump but none has thrown the puerile temper tantrums that Jennings has. It is also not because he is so effective that he makes liberals cower. Jennings has all the debating skills of a high school sophomore who tries to own his English teacher after reading Atlas Shrugged.

Let me preface this by saying that I grew up worshipping CNN. When other kids wanted to meet Wynona Ryder, I wanted to meet Christiane Amanpour. The network is still filled with incredible journalists who perform their jobs without fear of favor. They deserve better than this.

Unfortunately, CNN’s current CEO, Mark Thompson, beclowns the legacy he was handed with comments like this about Jennings:

“Scott’s like D’Artagnan, he’s got his sword out and he’s got about four Democrats against him, but he spiked them all off. That’s much more like it, I think. He’s a worthy opponent, as it were, for the Democrats in the room,” he added. “And it makes for not just good television, but also for in some ways, a slightly deeper testing of the ideas all the way around that table.”

“I do think the idea of challenge, and of all of us being exposed to perspectives we maybe disagree with and having our own views put to the test, is a healthy thing,” he said.

I might have a unique perspective into Jennings’ role and how to execute it properly. For years, I was one of the few Democratic contributors at Fox News and sat in almost daily on the network’s two panel shows, The Five and Outnumbered. I agree with Thompson that having a differing viewpoint “makes for not just good television, but also for in some ways, a slightly deeper testing of the ideas all the way around that table.” Differing perspectives are, indeed, “a healthy thing.”

But if I had ever told Kimberly Guilfoyle to “Get your fucking hand out of my face” when we sat next to one another on The Five, as Jennings told his fellow panelist Adam Mockler last week, I would have been frog marched out of the building and my ID card would have been deactivated — and rightly so. This is simply not how adults behave — even if the president of the United States has lowered the standard precipitously. Anyone given a platform on national television had better learn how to actually argue a viewpoint, rather than blather, smirk, and mug to the camera like a reality show contestant.

Losing it on Mockler because he could not win a debate is not Jennings’ only fault. In just the past few months, a CNN anchor has publicly called him a liar, network journalists accused him of violating standards, and CNN’s own reporting disputed his commentary about the Iran War. Under any other circumstances, he would have been gone. Instead, he was back on air less than twenty-four hours after cursing out Mockler.

CNN is not going to fire Jennings because everyone inside its Hudson Yards headquarters can read the corporate weather report. Paramount Skydance’s successful pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery will soon put CNN under the same media empire now being reshaped by David Ellison and Bari Weiss’s CBS News experiment. CNN staffers are already panicked about what this impending deal will mean for the network’s journalism and leadership. The person who disciplines Jennings today could very well be the person shown the door tomorrow.

Both Jennings and CNN’s executives know this. In a normal newsroom, that would trigger a serious conversation about standards. At CNN in 2026, it apparently triggers a different calculation: why punish the pundit who may soon look like the new owner’s favorite flavor? So Jennings gets to act like a man with tenure in a company that is about to be acquired by people who turn a blind eye to his transgressions.

But why? Weiss, the current CBS chief who will likely soon preside over CNN, can elevate any number of MAGA pundits to Jennings’ role. There are many more capable debaters out there to carry the water for Trump. She can even poach a few Fox anchors with the lure of Ellison’s checkbook if she really wants someone who knows how to read Trump’s mind. So why is Jennings behaving with such impunity?

The answer goes well beyond the sycophancy Jennings has shown towards Weiss in recent months. It is something that CNN has failed to disclose — if anyone there has even bothered to understand it. But it is deeply relevant to Jennings’ outburst last week and to what kind of media organization the nation’s oldest cable news network will be as it prepares to enter its Paramount era.

Jennings is not just a CNN panelist. In July, Salem Radio Network announced that he would be hosting the Scott Jennings Show, a daily one-hour program. In October, David Ellison first made a serious play for Time Warner Discovery, CNN’s parent company. Two months later, Jenning’s show at Salem expanded to two hours to occupy part of the coveted midday slot previously held by Charlie Kirk.

Jennings’ work for Salem is critical to understanding his survival at CNN under Weiss’ impending leadership.

In January 2025, Salem Media Group named Brad Parscale, Trump’s former campaign manager, its chief strategy officer. By September, Parscale had registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act through his Clock Tower X LLC for work connected to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The contract was initially worth $6 million, and a later FARA amendment shows the budget was increased to $9 million, with an added $3 million for digital advertising.

In announcing Parscale’s hiring, the CEO of Salem said that one of Parscale’s attributes is his ability to bring “a wealth of digital marketing experience to Salem.” Other coverage noted that he would be bringing “his expertise to the company’s digital marketing and online strategy.”

The FARA documents show that the Israeli Foreign Ministry contracted with Parscale’s Clock Tower to “provide strategic communications, planning, and media services” to “develop and execute a nationwide campaign in the United States to combat antisemitism.” Notably, part of Clock Tower’s mandate is to integrate pro-Israel messaging into Salem Media Network’s content.

None of this makes Jennings a foreign agent but it does make the ecosystem worth scrutinizing. A CNN commentator now has a major platform at Salem, whose C-Suite executive is paid to help shape messaging on behalf of Israel across American media. It is worth asking whether Thompson or anyone else in the CNN C-Suite is aware of this and if they find it troubling to share a pundit with a network that is openly integrating foreign viewpoints into its programming. At the very least, viewers might ask why CNN has not insisted that Jennings disclose all this when he opines on the Middle East.

Weiss’ role is also critical here. She has made support for Israel a central part of her public identity and editorial worldview, calling herself a “Zionist fanatic.” Since taking the helm at CBS News, she has elevated Tony Dokoupil, whose contentious interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates over Israel turned him into a symbol of the network’s new ideological direction. She also removed London bureau chief Claire Day after reportedly clashing with her over Middle East coverage, replacing her with Shayndi Raice, a former Wall Street Journal editor known for pro-Israel reporting.

Irrespective of where one stands on Israel, this is a dangerous way to run a news organization. Newsrooms are not advocacy shops. Anchors, contributors, and bureau chiefs should not rise or fall based on whether their views align with an executive’s foreign policy litmus test. The moment a network starts rewarding ideological conformity on any issue — Israel, Trump, Ukraine, abortion, climate, take your pick — it stops being a newsroom and starts being a clubhouse.

Jennings fits that clubhouse perfectly. He is combative, relentlessly pro-Trump (when it’s useful to his bottom line) and loudly hawkish on Israel and Iran. The idea that this somehow broadens CNN’s audience is laughable. Viewers are not sitting around wishing that CNN were more like Fox News. The Fox audience is not yearning to watch the poor man’s imitation of Fox’s bombastic anchors when they’ve got the real thing piping in through their cable boxes all day long.

What Jennings does provide is a permission structure. He lets executives say CNN is ideologically diverse while allowing one panelist to bulldoze the room, distort the conversation, and tarnish what used to be the gold standard in cable television. Maybe they tell themselves that this is enough for him to earn his keep without bothering to ask whether his Salem boss Parscale has ever urged him to adopt a particular viewpoint, not just at Salem but at CNN.

Then again, they may not even bother asking. Jennings has spent so much time lying so consistently that his CNN bosses may simply see no point in posing a question they assume will not be answered honestly.

That is the real scandal. CNN is not protecting Jennings because he is good television. It is protecting him because he is useful in a corporate transition where the next regime may prize his affiliation more than his professionalism. It is fair to ask whether all this is being shaped by a radio executive who is being paid millions of dollars a year to ensure that a foreign government’s worldview seeps not just onto Salem’s airwaves but also into other media coverage — which coincides nicely with the new regime that will soon be taking over CNN.

CNN thinks it is buying ideological insurance by keeping Jennings. What it is actually doing is selling off its credibility. That may not matter to its future corporate overlords, whose sole priority is promoting a particular worldview, but it should matter to those of us who still think of it as the home of great journalists.