CNN political commentator Scott Jennings accused American Federation of Teachers union boss Randi Weingarten of having “no remorse” for the damage done by lengthy pandemic-era school closures during a heated discussion Thursday night.
Jennings pilloried Weingarten, an influential union leader and Biden administration ally, a day after she defended her involvement in the controversial school lockdowns during a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill.
“We don’t know each other, but speaking on behalf of millions of American parents — I have four at home, I had to teach them at home, my wife had to teach them at home — I am stunned at what you have said this week about your claiming to have wanted to reopen schools,” Jennings said during the segment, according to a recording from Mediaite.
“I think you’ll find that most parents believe you were the tip of the spear of school closures,” Jennings continued.
“There are numerous statements you made over the summer of ’20 scaring people to death about the possibility of opening schools, and I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that’s been done to these kids. I have two kids with learning differences.”
Licht summoned Darcy and his editor Jon Passantino to a meeting with himself, CNN comms chief Kris Coratti, editorial executive vice president Virginia Moseley and senior vice president of global news Rachel Smolkin, in which they told him that his coverage had been too emotional and repeatedly stressed the importance of remaining dispassionate when covering the news, be it CNN or any other media organization.
CNN and new network boss Chris Licht are facing a fury of criticism — both internally and externally over the event. How Licht and other CNN executives address the criticism in the coming days and weeks will be crucial. Will they defend what transpired at Saint Anselm College? Or will they express some regret? For now, CNN is defending itself.
I’ve never been more ashamed to work at CNN. I don’t think anybody came out looking good. This is entirely a corporate and management failure. They should have anticipated how out of control Trump would be … to think he was going to act more presidential in that kind of setting is just naivety on a galactic scale.
Again, didn't watch it but - was the whole thing different than say, a Hannity interview? Was the CNN person more hostile?The Libs/CNN knew they were in trouble when Trump got a standing O when he walked out on the stage.
“To the folks in the control room, I don’t need to see any more of that. He’s trying to turn it into a spectacle, into a campaign ad. That is enough of that. We’ve seen it already. Ah, let’s go over again the 37 charges that Donald Trump is facing…”
In big sky country, it's a story fit for a big screen. On one side, 16 young people from ranches, reservations, and boom towns across Montana, ranging in age from five to 22. On the other side, the Republican-led state of Montana, which lost a three-year fight to keep this case out of court but is still determined to let fossil fuels keep flowing, despite the warnings from science that burning them will only melt more glaciers, blacken more skies, and ravage more rivers.
I don't think that the Republicans have a chance to take that out of the constitution right now, but we'll see what kind of a defense they put up, whether they counter the science of climate change in all, whether they say, you know, the economy is just too dependent on this to do anything about it.
You said recently in a speech that if we keep having these terrible differences that we have, we will destroy each other, we have to find a way, how to live together…
I spoke to one of the Republican candidates, former Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas who said to me ‘give the candidates a chance to talk to the issues the Americans are concerned about, let’s use appropriate language, let's be clear that we have differences of policy but doesn't always make the person on the other side an evil person or somebody that doesn't love our country.’…
Do you think the Republicans will coalesce around that kind of message?
But the two that I'll highlight for us, Poppy and Phil, involve, you know, higher education and affirmative action for starters, whether racial affirmative action policies that have been in place for decades, and that have enhanced campus diversity, and really given black and Hispanic students a leg up, whether they will be ended. A group of conservatives have challenged that.
CNN host Abby Phillip ended a segment with a fair admissions advocate on Thursday when he used facts to demonstrate the downside of affirmative action.
Kenny Xu — a board member for Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case — told Phillip that academic excellence, not race, "should be prioritized" in college admissions.
"I think that admissions should be only based on merit," he said. "Why are we asking a university to calculate somebody's level of diversity? I think that sets a very bad precedent for anybody trying to get into college. We should be treated on the basis of our merits. We should be treated on the basis of how hard we work, or study, our SAT scores, our grades."
But Phillip pushed back. She asked why admissions boards should not consider "other factors" that students "bring to the table" like socio-economic background.
Xu argued you cannot do that fairly because, inevitably, admissions standards are changed for applicants from a disadvantaged socio-economic background versus applicants from a privileged background.
"We don't want that. We want black students to succeed. We want every student to succeed, low-income students to succeed," he pointed out. "But you have to put them in scenarios, in places where they are likely to succeed. And lowering your standard to admit somebody of a socio-economic status or race would not help you do that. In fact, you would harm their graduation rate and excellence."