‘Hold On!’ CNN Anchor Hammers Scott Jennings Over Trump Education Chief’s ‘Holocaust Denier’ Hearing Exchange
CNN anchor Abby Phillip hammered GOP analyst Scott Jennings over his defense of a stunning answer that Trump Secretary of Education Linda McMahon gave at a hearing.
McMahon testified Wednesday at a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing, during which Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) asked her if refusing to hire a Holocaust denier counts as an impermissible “litmus test,” to which McMahon replied “I believe there should be diversity of viewpoints relative to teachings and opinions on campuses.”
On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip was joined by a panel that included Jennings, Dan Koh, Reecie Colbert, Brad Todd, and Ana Navarro.
Phillip and Jennings got into it immediately as Jennings tried to argue that McMahon’s response wasn’t actually a response to the question that Takano asked, and Phillip strenuously disagreed:
PHILLIP: A diversity of viewpoints about holocaust denying?
JENNINGS: That’s not what she said.
UNKNOWN: That’s not what she said.
JENNINGS: That’s not at all what just happened there.
PHILLIP: Okay, hold on. She says —
JENNINGS: She’s saying that college faculty are uniformly —
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: OK. All right. Let me just read again what was just said. The question, “Does refusing to hire a holocaust denier as a member of Harvard’s history department count as an ideological litmus test?” She says, “I believe there should be diversity of viewpoints relative to teachings and opinions on campus.”
JENNINGS: She was not —
PHILLIP: I don’t understand.
JENNINGS: She was not answering what is a patently ridiculous question.
PHILLIP: Wait, excuse me! Excuse me!
JENNINGS: And I and no Republican can take any lectures about anti- Semitism right now from Democrats.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But why on Earth would she not be able to answer that question? Why would she even dodge the question?
JENNINGS: She has the same answer every Republican has had for time immemorial.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Why isn’t there any diversity?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, what is the — so, what is the answer?
UNKNOWN: It was the joke of a question. It was the joke of a question.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, what’s the answer? What’s the answer?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Is it an ideological litmus test to have a holocaust denier be asked —
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Is there an ideological litmus test that you have to believe in progressive radicalism —
PHILLIP: Wait a second.
JENNINGS: — to get hired now? Because that’s what it seems like to us.
PHILLIP: Holocaust denialism.
JENNINGS: That’s the box they have to check.
PHILLIP: Which is card carrying, text book anti-Semitism. You think —
JENNINGS: She wasn’t responding to that.
PHILLIP: — that doesn’t count?
JENNINGS: She wasn’t responding to that. It is a patently ridiculous assertion.
PHILLIP: Why are you — why are you assuming that she wasn’t responding to that when she gave that answer in response —
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Because I have — because I’m a thinking human being who can see what a rational person would say to a ridiculous question.
PHILLIP: She didn’t say that’s a ridiculous question.
JENNINGS: You were totally — you were totally misconstruing this.
PHILLIP: Scott, Scott, literally, we played it for the American people to see it.
JENNINGS: Yeah. And every single person’s going to see it my way.
PHILLIP: She — she literally did not answer — she did not answer the question the way you want to answer the question, and that question has an answer. What is the answer?
JENNINGS: The answer to that question is you’re an idiot to that congressman.
PHILLIP: What is the answer to the question. What is the answer? Will the federal government — if somebody comes in and says, I don’t believe the Holocaust really happened. Will the federal government bring the hammer down on universities for saying, that is not a viewpoint that we are allowing on our campuses?
TODD: The question would be —
PHILLIP: That the answer — the answer ought to be no, but it sounds like no answer to the answer.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: No. The answer ought to be what kind of litmus test is Harvard putting on its faculty now?
JENNINGS: Yes.
TODD: Only three percent of its faculty are —
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, listen.
Watch above via CNN NewsNight.
