Abby Phillip Hits Scott Jennings With His Own Words in Brawl Over Trump Travel Chief: ‘OK to Acknowledge When You’re Wrong’

CNN anchor Abby Phillip hit conservative analyst Scott Jennings with his own words during a brawl over President Donald Trump’s transportation chief filming a reality show with his family.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is under fire for spending seven months filming a reality TV show documenting his family’s road trip across America, as Americans struggle to afford gasoline and other necessities.

On Monday’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip hosted a panel that included Jennings, Bakari Sellers, Ashley Allison, Kevin O’Leary, and Elie Honig.

During a discussion of Duffy’s trip, Phillip played a montage of pro-MAGA figures slamming then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for taking paternity leave while his infant was in the intensive care unit. One of them was a cowboy-hatted Jennings:

PHILLIP: A couple of years ago when Pete Buttigieg was Transportation Secretary, you’ve heard a lot about this from his partner, Chasten, over the weekend. This is the criticism that he received for taking a paternity leave.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TUCKER CARLSON, THEN-FOX NEWS HOST: Pete Buttigieg has been on leave from his job since August after adopting a child — paternity leave they call it, trying to figure out how to breastfeed, no word on how that went. But now, he’s back in office as the transportation secretary and he’s deeply amused, he says, to see that dozens of container ships can’t get into this country.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: Yes, while he bottle-fed, we bottle necked. And while he brought home the bacon, our actual bacon doubled in price.

JENNINGS: I’m a pro-family leave guy, I believe in it. But when you accept an assignment from the President of the United States, and you are confirmed by the U.S. Senate, you’re accepting a higher level of responsibility, a higher level of public service, and frankly, you ought to know that goes with some personal sacrifice. He’s not a middle manager at Dunder Mifflin Scranton, PA, OK? He is the Secretary of Transportation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: First of all, first of all, Scott, I miss the hat.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I was in Arizona. Tombstone, Arizona, for the record.

PHILLIP: Second of all, you weren’t OK with Pete Buttigieg taking a paternity leave, which according to his partner was because their son was in the ICU —

SELLERS: Correct.

PHILLIP: — their newborn son was in the ICU. How can you be OK with Sean Duffy going on a road trip sponsored by people who he has to regulate?

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: There’s no allegation that he’s not doing his job — A. B, I do think it’s good for the U.S. government to promote U.S. interest to the American people.

PHILLIP: So, but there wasn’t — I mean, there wasn’t any evidence that Pete Buttigieg wasn’t doing his job.

JENNINGS: You don’t remember the containers? Miles and miles of containers off —

(CROSSTALK)

ALLISON: You don’t remember the plane crashes? I mean —

PHILLIP: I’m sorry, what? What are you — you just listed a whole bunch of things that have been going on. This past weekend —

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: – somebody was hit by an airplane on a tarmac.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: By the way, they filmed this months ago. They didn’t film it yesterday and put it out today.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: It’s OK to acknowledge when you were wrong.

ALLISON: Yes. PHILLIP: And when it was not okay —

JENNINGS: What was I wrong about? Buttigieg was a horrible – and he would be horrible president.

PHILLIP: You tell me which part is wrong. Is it Pete Buttigieg’s paternity leave, that was wrong to criticize that, or is it wrong to criticize Sean Duffy now?

JENNINGS: Well, people have every right to criticize him. I just don’t know what the allegation is that he’s somehow not doing his job properly. I think he’s overseeing a transformation of our air traffic —

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Hold. Everybody stop.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Stop, Kevin.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: We got to go.

ALLISON: We all do television and some of us prepare to do television. And when you are actually doing something you put an effort, you get — you pay attention to it. But I don’t want any of our secretaries paying attention to is how they do television. And it feels like —

JENNINGS: Communicating?

ALLISON: No, no.

JENNINGS: With the American people?

ALLISON: He’s not communicating. He was filming it for seven months while train — or plane crashes were happening. And you don’t think this was a distraction?

PHILLIP: All right.

JENNINGS: No.

ALLISON: Okay, well,

PHILLIP: All right, we got to leave it there.

ALLISON: The people who experienced trauma from —

O’LEARY: If that show beat “Shark Tank,” I’m going to be pissed.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.

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