CNN ‘News Night’ pundit Scott Jennings (YouTube/ScreenGrab)
CNN correspondent Scott Jennings, who is well known for supporting President Donald Trump, admitted on Tuesday night that the Republican Party's poor performance in the 2026 midterm elections proves the GOP leader is the problem.
"I’m so happy," liberal-leaning correspondent Van Jones said as Democrats won key races from South Carolina to Georgia to Texas. "This is like Christmas and a birthday and the Easter bunny and Halloween. This is the repudiation of Trumpism that people have been hoping for: seeing American democracy stand up. Sometimes you have kleptocratic rulers that get in power and they ensconce themselves for decades. In America, 24 months later: knock it off, you don’t want it."
Comparing the Trump movement to a cult, as cult experts like Dr. Steven Hassan have previously done, Jones continued, "And by the way, if you join a cult, at some point the cult leader takes you to Jonestown and tries to get you to drink the Kool-Aid. This is Jonestown for the Republican Party. They drank the Kool-Aid, and they have candidates that are dropping like flies across the country because they did not stand up to this guy when he was doing things that were wrong, when he was violating the law, when he was running over our system. They didn’t stand up to him, and they’re paying the price. It’s Jonestown tonight. You join the cult, at some point you go to Jonestown. That’s where you are tonight, Republicans."
Jennings, after jokingly reminding Jones that he was still seated right next to him, sheepishly admitted that his colleague was correct.
"I’m not going to sugarcoat it," Jennings told Jones. "There’s a political science term for what’s happening. It’s called a country a - - whooping. That’s what’s happening right now."
After Jones heartily agreed, Jennings elaborated on why this is happening.
"There are a lot of reasons for what’s happening right now," Jennings told Jones. "The most immediate issue is cost of living and gas prices, and that is the bottom line. You can read into a lot of other things. You can be jubilant about this, that, or the other. But at the end of the day, the American people have here-and-now concerns, and that’s really the lesson you’ve got to take away from this. And that’s the thing the Democrats are going to have to take away from this. They didn’t really run on a platform. They didn’t really run on any legislation. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and now they partially wear it in Washington."
He then turned to recent American history for an example as to why his Republicans could take solace in the night's triumph for Democrats.
"To pick out a silver lining, I can only look back at 2010," Jennings told Jones. "The Democrats in the White House, where Axe was, took a bit of a shellacking, I think President Obama called it, and he turned right around and learned from it and ended up getting reelected in 2012. There’s a way to learn from nights like this. That’s what the Republicans are going to have to do. Democrats are going to celebrate tonight, yes. But Republicans have to wake up tomorrow and realize that the great thing about America is there’s always another election, and the work starts tomorrow."