Media Criticism

Billy Binion | 1.7.2026 11:00 AM

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This week, guest host Billy Binion is joined by Scott Jennings, a political analyst best known for his viral debates on CNN, where he is often the lone conservative voice. Jennings is also the author of A Revolution of Common Sense, a new book arguing that President Donald Trump's political comeback is rooted in what Jennings calls a common-sense governing platform.

Jennings and Binion discuss whether Trump's policies on such issues as tariffs, deportations, and foreign affairs live up to that description a year into Trump's second term. They also talk about Jennings' experience working at CNN, his criticisms of the legacy media, and why he feels Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are more similar than they appear.

The conversation also turns to the growing civil war on the right, including recent public infighting among conservative factions and influencers. Jennings explains where he draws lines within the conservative movement, his views on free speech versus free association, and why he believes some figures are doing lasting damage to conservatism's ability to articulate a coherent set of values and priorities.

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and scholars who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least more interesting—place by championing free minds and free markets.

0:00–Introduction
0:59–Being a conservative at CNN
6:53–The future of media
17:01–Going from Trump critic to Trump supporter
19:53–The influence of Mitch McConnell
24:00–Limited government and the One Big Beautiful Bill
30:25–The Trump administration and free speech
39:31–Trump's immigration and tariff policies
56:45–The shortcomings of DOGE
1:01:24–Antisemitism and conspiracy theorists on the right
1:09:08–Alignment between the GOP and libertarians

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Billy Binion: Scott Jennings, thank you for talking to Reason. 

Scott Jennings: Hey, glad to be here. Thanks for having me in.

So you've been very critical of the mainstream media, and you're also on one of the most visible mainstream media networks. So I'm wondering, what is your objective at CNN? And do you think that you get a fair hearing on those panels?

Well, my objective is to participate in debate. I think debate is good. I think the country was founded on debates—and some muskets—but also debates. And I think to the extent that we can foster more debates in our political culture, it's gonna be a good thing for America.

CNN used to, years ago, sort of pioneer this. You know, this was the network of Crossfire. And then we got away from it, and there's really not that much debating content out there on the air. And so last year, they decided to do this debating show. And I thought, "This is a great idea." And it's worked. I think it was supposed to be a temporary thing. And then it was so popular, they left it on the air, and it's still going here over a year later.

So my purpose is to participate in debates. My purpose is to give half, or more than half, or sometimes 90 percent of the country, like, somebody who can argue and articulate on their behalf. And I just—I'm here to pop bubbles, you know? I think it's bad when we get stuck in our ideological bubbles. I meet a lot of people in this line of work who—I might be the only Republican they know. That's a bad thing, ok? This is not a good thing for America. And so that's my purpose.

Do I get a fair hearing? I mean, I think I make it more than fair out there for my point of view. I mean, certainly, there are more people out there who would disagree with me than agree at the table. And none of the hosts agree with me, of course. But no one's ever censored me. No one's ever told me, "You can't articulate that view." No one has ever put a script in front of me and said, you have to do this. So to the extent that I get to do what I do and say what I wanna say, it happens every time. 

To that point, why do you think that the makeup is always you being outnumbered? Do you think it would be better if it were just 50–50? What do you think about that?

Well, I don't know. I'm not a television producer. I mean, I think it actually is sort of interesting when you have one person, you know, fighting a mob, you know? I mean, just for television. I mean, to me it's kind of interesting. And certainly people who are of my political persuasion like it that way. They think it's kinda neat that one guy can disarm, you know, four or five people at the same time.

At the same time, I think you could probably do quite well, you know, putting an even-handed thing out there. But for what CNN is trying to do and what they have done, I don't have any criticisms at all because they're the only network that actually has stepped its foot back into the idea that debates are a good thing to platform.

I go all over the country. I hear two things: I love you and I love the debates. I don't care for you, but I love the debates. The commonality is the debates. And so CNN and our CEO, Mark Thompson, realized this and they decided to put some debates on the air. And most of the time, I think it works pretty well.

Could you make a go of it with a totally evenly split show? Probably. But that's not what they've chosen to do. And that's…for me right now, that's perfectly fine. I do think there could be other evolutions of this and other iterations of it, but that—that's above my pay grade.

How do you think the legacy media is doing covering Trump this time around? Do you think it's better or do you think it's worse, the same?

Not great. I mean—no, look. I think… Trump broke a lot of people—he broke a lot of institutions and he warped a lot of things. One of them is institutional media, which has decided that it needs to defeat Trump, that it needs to subdue Trump, that it needs to finally get Trump. That's different than covering Trump. And it's been that way for 10 years.

And so do I think there are people out there covering him fairly? Yeah, I do. Do I think that there are people out there who are grinding axes and basically executing on a political agenda? Absolutely. And I think—look, I mean, don't take my word for it. Look at the Gallup poll. You know, they take this confidence-in-institutions survey every year. Trust in the mainstream media is lower than it's ever been. There's a reason for that.

And so I think there is a way to cover Trump where you can tell the truth, and where you can be critical, and where you can shine lights. And I think there's also a way to do it where you can appear to just be grinding an ax to fit a narrative. And I think a lot of times the ax grinding and the narrative building is what you get, right?

The show versus tell quandary.

Yeah. And I also think, you know, a lot of mainstream media is very insular. And they don't really consider the viewpoints of people outside of their little bubble. And that's not good either.

So look, you know, I think—I believe you asked me, why am I at CNN? I believe in a free press and a trusted free press at that. I also believe in popping ideological bubbles. And I also believe that conservatives need to be represented in news organizations.

So there's a lot of reasons for someone like me to do this. But one of the ways that they could reform themselves is to take a little bit of an introspective look at: How are we covering not just Trump but all conservatives, all Republicans? How do we cover that movement or that political persuasion versus our preference?

And if they were able to do that, I think, and do it, you know, with a really critical eye, they might find some shortcomings in what they've done. And it would help explain why people don't trust them, or why they have fled to independent journalism or independent news sources. And it might be a little bit of a roadmap back.

That is a perfect segue to something I wanted to ask you. In your book, Common Sense, you talk a lot about how the influence of the mainstream media has receded over the last few years. How have you experienced that shift? And what do you think the future of media is?

Well, I've experienced it for the last 25 years in politics. You know, I'm in media now, but really, for the last quarter century, I have been a political operative. I've worked on presidential campaigns, Senate campaigns, all kinds of Republican politics stuff. I've been in public relations, and now I'm with CNN and Salem Radio.

So I've seen this from all angles. And for most of my career, what the mainstream media said in a presidential campaign mattered a lot. You know, the narratives that they would strike, the storylines, the vectors—what they said mattered a lot. It mattered, frankly, more than TV ads, or the paid advertising.

That just wasn't true in 2024. I mean, you think about what you heard in October of '24 about the narratives that were closing out the campaign—you know, all the Puerto Ricans are mad and Harris is going to win Pennsylvania because of it, or there's a poll in Iowa, or…You kept hearing these things. What they wanted people to believe the vector or the momentum of the campaign was was something altogether different than what was actually happening in the country. That was borne out on election night.

And so what I learned in 2024 is that, probably in my career, this was the least influential the mainstream media has been in a presidential campaign cycle. Not to say that there isn't influence, and not to say that the mainstream doesn't have an impact. But in terms of overall influence, if you look at the way Trump ran around them and did all sorts of things in alternative formats, that obviously was extremely helpful to him.

And if you looked at the ways Harris kind of ran towards the mainstream media—I mean, all she was really capable of doing was standard-issue mainstream media stuff. And even at that, she didn't do it very well. But she was not really capable of the unscripted, outside-of-the-mainstream.

Right, the criticism of her was that she was inauthentic.

Exactly. And you have to have some of that in order to participate in the new media stuff. Trump obviously did it, and his people understood it. And they kind of ran circles around it. And so they just didn't live or die by the narratives of the mainstream media. They created their own communications ecosystem outside of that. It obviously worked.

And so that's why I argued in the book that it seems to me that in 2024—and I said this on election night—this was kind of the death of the political information distribution complex, which has heretofore controlled the narratives in our politics. But I don't think that's true now.

We're seeing this White House prioritize some of these independent creators, smaller right-leaning outlets, which I think is interesting and good in a lot of ways. I will also say, though, some of the people who have gotten the opportunity to be in the briefing room who otherwise wouldn't have been have gotten some criticism for using the chance to kind of lob more softball questions. You know, like there was one guy who asked about, like, "Will Big Balls get the Medal of Honor?" or that kind of thing.

I very much agree with you that the mainstream media has squandered a lot of credibility by being very deferential to one side—and very obviously so. And so I'm wondering what you think the right's role is in rectifying that.

Well, I agree with you that it's good for the White House briefing room to be reformed. I think it's good that they brought in other people.

Look, a lot of these people—and I'm new to this—but a lot of these people I'm learning have millions upon millions of followers. And they get lots of views. And in some cases, they have more views than certain mainstream outlets.

Totally, yeah.

I mean—and so in terms of audience, if I'm the White House—and the, you know, the White House that I worked for, we came just before the advent of social media. Bush 43 was kind of the last old-world White House before 24/7. You know, I think Politico came out in 2007 and then social media comes shortly thereafter.

And so that was basically the dawn of Twitter. Right.

Exactly. And so we existed before. But if you had told me back in those days, well, you have all these different channels where you can talk to hundreds of thousands or millions of people without having to get, you know, hammered by The Washington Post or whatever, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

So it's smart for the White House to do this. It's also good, because there's a lot of people that get news and information that way. So that's a good thing.

You know, the right's responsibility here, I think, is to produce honest, true content and understand that we're in a moment where the marketplace is desirous of new political content. They want it presented in authentic ways. They have questions they'd like to get answered.

And so my only advice would be: Do something creative. Do something authentic. Do something that's pleasing to the viewer. I mean, after all, it is a business. But do something with your time if you're given a seat in there. Ask a good question. Think of something that no one else has asked.

I try to do this on the shows that I'm on: What is nobody else saying? What is the question that no one else wants to ask that would lead to a line of conversation that might be new and unique to your deal?

That will enhance your position in all this. I don't want to single out or be critical of anybody who's gotten a seat in there, because I think it's good what they're doing. But if I were giving any of them advice, it would be: What's the thing nobody else is willing to ask in here that actually might be illuminating to the overall conversation? That's a good way to do it.

So right now, CNN is in the spotlight with this merger. What do you make of Trump's role in the media merger and, you know, purporting to have a voice in CNN's future?

Yeah, he has lots of opinions about lots of things in the media business, and that's not gonna stop—

He's a showman after all. 

I think it is hard. He's a television producer…

Right, exactly.

I mean, in some of the interactions I've had with him and observing him over the years, I think he—and look, he had one of the most successful television shows out there. He knows a little about the TV business. And so I'm not surprised that he has opinions about it.

And of course the federal government does have some regulatory oversight here in terms of how this goes. So I don't really know how to answer that, other than to say: not surprised Trump has an opinion. And it's a little bit above my pay grade. You know, when you're talking about this amount of money, it's way above Scott Jennings' pay grade. But I don't know who's going to own it. I don't know what it's going to look like. But do I think Donald Trump is going to continue to voice an opinion about what he sees on CNN? One hundred percent.

I assume he will not answer this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you have a preference?

I do not. I have no answer for that question, other than to tell you that I'm quite happy with my deal and quite happy with my role. And as I said earlier, for all the criticisms of the right of CNN—some warranted—it was CNN and Mark Thompson who brought back the debating format that ultimately put conservatives in a position at CNN to articulate our viewpoint.

And look, I think that show and what we've been able to do there has actually made CNN safe again, you know, for some conservatives to watch it and to come back on it. I've noticed since we put that show on the air, there are now more Republican elected officials who are willing to come on and do interviews and do things.

You've been there since 2017. Did you feel like they were skeptical before of coming on?

Yes. Oh, I think we went through a period where a lot of Republicans did not want to come on. They didn't feel like they were going to get a fair hearing. And I think we were having trouble booking Republicans at one time. I mean, there's always, you know, a person here or there. But now it feels to me—and I don't have any metrics to back this up—it just feels to me now like there are more Republicans willing to engage with CNN.

I attribute some of that to what we've been doing with the debates, because it shows that CNN actually does have a commitment to allowing people with authentic conservative views to voice those views and not feel like they're just going to be shouted down or run out of the room or, you know, maligned for eight minutes or however long they're on there.

So I'll just say, however this goes, whatever happens, it is CNN right now that's giving the American people debates. And I don't think anybody else is doing that.

For the listeners who are very online, they may know that sometimes there is like a gossip cycle when, you know, when you are pictured with someone like Kaitlan Collins or something like that. Before we move on to, you know, politics in general, can you just talk about the relationships off the camera? Why you think that animates people so?

Yeah. Well, first of all, the people who work at CNN—we're very collegial internally. We have a community. In fact, it's one of the best parts of the job, actually, is the people who've been there together for a number of years. We spend a lot of time together, and in some cases we even travel a lot together.

My two best friends at the network are Van Jones and David Axelrod—interestingly.

Staunch Dems. 

And I love them both and have really benefited, I think, from knowing them and conversing…

David Axelrod was an Obama guy, right? 

He was Obama's chief strategist.

Right, right, right.

And Van Jones, you know, is one of the most prominent left-wing commentators, Obama White House staffer, and has been aligned with a lot of left-wing causes and organizations.

But I think they're both—look, the best debaters and commentators have experience, are thoughtful, they listen. I mean, you can always tell the difference between the good and the bad out there. The people who can only sort of say what they wrote down in advance versus the ones who listen and can engage in the debate.

Van and Axe are debaters, and they listen and then they can react. Those are the best kinds.

But off the air, those are my buddies. And with the anchors—I mean, I have great relationships with the people that I'm on the air with. I mean, I think we have some interesting and sometimes heated exchanges, but I respect what they do. I think they respect what I do. And the community of CNN has actually been quite a pleasant thing to be involved in.

I want to talk about the changing GOP. Something that's always kind of fascinated me. And I would like to preface this by saying I do not mean this as a gotcha. You know, in preparing for this interview, I saw that in the 2016 election, you weren't necessarily Trump's biggest fan. 

Nine........

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