MSNBC host blasts CNN’s 'paid Donald Trump liar'

MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell accused CNN of hiring a "paid liar" for President Donald Trump in a scathing rebuke of the network's controversial conservative contributor, according to The Daily Beast.

O'Donnell tore into CNN's "Trump-supporting CEO Mark Thompson" and singled out the network's Scott Jennings for "his unscrupulous views," they report.

"Everyone who remains has become much more careful in anything they might even think of saying about Donald Trump,” O’Donnell said on "The Last Word."

Jennings, in particular, O'Donnell noted, is someone who CNN “eagerly pays to lie every day and every night for Donald Trump."

And while Jennings emerged on TV as a more moderate conservative, over time, O'Donnell noted, he has become less moderate and more MAGA.

"When he first started appearing on television, he was capable of criticizing some of the more extreme Trump positions. But Scott Jennings figured out where the money is, and how he could get his own podcast, and decided to become the JD Vance of CNN," O'Donnell said.

Thompson has defended Jennings as "good TV" despite, The Daily Beast says, "being the object of ridicule during his many appearances on the network."

"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,” Thompson said, comparing Jennings to the protagonist of the Three Musketeers.

“That’s much more like it. I think he’s a worthy opponent, as it were, for the Democrats in the room. And it makes not just good television, but also, in some ways, a slightly deeper testing of the ideas all the way around the table," Thompson said.

O'Donnell used his own show's ratings to dispel that rationale, saying, "Here’s how bad that television is that they make over there. The show that Scott Jennings frequents the most is on opposite this program. And that show, on a good night, gets half the audience of this show.“

"This program usually has an audience triple the size of the terrible, terrible television that Scott Jennings is delivering on the absurdly degraded version of CNN, presided over by the man who thinks lying for Donald Trump on TV is an honorable pursuit," O'Donnell said.

Jennings laughed it off on X, saying, " “No, Lawrence, I don’t have time to save your show.”