What To Know
- Caroline Sunshine and Scott Jennings clashed on CNN NewsNight over the Iran war.
- During the heated exchange, Sunshine accused Jennings of lying about his phone call with Senator Mitch McConnell.
- Jennings dismissed Sunshine as sounding like a ‘conspiracy theorist.’
It was a MAGA on MAGA showdown on Thursday’s (August 27) CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip as former White House staffer Caroline Sunshine accused Scott Jennings of lying about his phone calls with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
The heated back-and-forth began with a discussion about the Iran war, which Jennings previously said the United States won. Sunshine took Jennings to task about his earlier claims, saying, “This is important because, Scott, at the beginning of this war, you said that success was going to be defined as the regime being overthrown.”
“Never said that,” Jennings shot back.
“And that has not happened,” Sunshine continued. “So I just want to be clear, we don’t need to have the regime fully change in Iran for this to be a win?”
“I just want to be clear, you don’t know…” Jennings responded before Sunshine interrupted him.
“You also said it would be 4-to-6 weeks,” Sunshine fired back.
“I never said that,” the conservative commentator replied.
“Maybe we can roll the tape later,” Sunshine added.
Jennings, who has been rumored as a frontrunner to become President Trump’s next White House press secretary, explained that his idea of success is for Iran to no longer “have the ability to possess or build a nuclear weapon.”
“Which is great, because at the beginning of this war and now, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that they did not want one, they weren’t building one, they didn’t have one,” the former Disney Channel star responded. “Do you not believe the intelligence agencies?”
“Do you not believe the president’s son-in-law and his own board?” Jennings retorted as the argument grew tenser.
Sunshine then escalated the situation by changing subjects, telling Jennings, “I don’t believe you had a phone call with Mitch McConnell… I’ll tell you that.”
Jennings previously said he’d spoken on the phone with McConnell, who
has been the subject of speculation since he was hospitalized on June 14 and went weeks without a public appearance.
“I don’t believe you had a 20-minute phone call with Mitch McConnell, and I don’t think a lot of people do, either,” Sunshine continued as Jennings laughed.
“You sound like a garden-variety conspiracy theorist,” Jennings told Sunshine as Phillip tried to get the conversation back on track.
“How is he? Have you talked with him lately?” Sunshine asked mockingly.
“Yeah,” Jennings replied.
You can watch the segment here.