The MRC's Love Affair With Scott Jennings

The Media Research Center lionized the right-wing commentator -- even promoting his new radio show -- while censoring his screw-ups and the times he gets owned on CNN.

Mar 30, 2026

Scott Jennings is the Media Research Center’s favorite right-winger who doesn’t entirely reside in its right-wing media bubble — he appears on CNN. The MRC has devoted numerous posts to his pearls of right-wing wisdom and adherence to the approved, promoting him in earnest starting in 2022, 2023 and 2024, as detailed here.

Needless to say, the MRC refused to note the times that Jennings himself was SCHOOLED (to coin a phrase) by his fellow CNNers. For instance:

And for the MRC, of course — which also praised Jennings’ extracurricular activities as well. A November 2024 column by Jeffrey Lord cheered that Jennings was named to the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times and played up purported liberal anger over it:

All of which decidedly underlines the hard fact that for all their goings on about Trump being opposed to democracy, it is in fact the Left that hates genuine democracy.
Intellectual diversity is, of course, a bedrock principle of democracy. One of the central tenets of democracy is the freedom to speak one’s mind on the issues of the day. The point of the First Amendment is to ensure that freedom of speech is guaranteed to American citizens.
Thus the uproar over the appointment of a conservative to the Times editorial board is a showcasing for the Left’s intolerance of intellectual diversity and their hatred for genuine democracy at work.

Lord is not going to mention the utter lack of intellectual diversity at the organization that publishes his column. Neither will Tim Graham, who praised Jennings in his December 2024 podcast:

CNN analyst Scott Jennings filled in for Salem Radio talk show host Mike Gallagher this week, and one of the most interesting interviews was with Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times. He divulged to Jennings he’s privately developing a “bias meter,” a new AI-powered technology to enhance the balance of the news stories at his paper.
The medical mogul added, “What we need to do is not have what we call ‘confirmation bias’ and then that story, automatically, the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story based on that story. And then give comments. Now, I’m giving you some little breaking news here but this is what we’re currently building behind the scenes. And I’m hoping that by January we launch this.”
Jennings replied, “So we’re talking about a fusion of content created by journalists and technology that you’re developing that will give the readers a more well-rounded or complete view of any given story at any given time.”

Graham failed to mention that Soon-Shiong hired Jennings to be on his editorial board, so this was obviously going to be a softball interview of a new employee asking gushy questions of his new boss — the kind the MRC purports to hate.

Into 2025

Here’s how the MRC’s fawning over Jennings for peddling conservatively correct narratives looked during the first few months of this year:

It was not mentioned that Jennings got smacked down in February for defending President Trump’s banning of the Associated Press for not being on board with his arbitrary renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, or that he got brutally fact-checked that same month for denying that Israel hade violated a cease-fire deal in Gaza.

Jorge Bonilla was particularly taken by Jennings’ performance in a March 19 post:

On CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip, Democrat apparat and failed Biden OMB nominee Neera Tanden tried to conflate the leftist terror attacks against Tesla vehicles and facilities with the January 6th Capitol Riot. Conservative commentator Scott Jennings had none of it.
Watch the exchange in its entirety, as Tanden realizes about halfway through that she walked into a buzzsaw[.] […]
Credit to CNN’s John Berman, who subbed in for host Abby Phillip and let Jennings and Tanden have it out with minimal intervention. Like a good MMA referee, Berman checked in and cleaned the exchange up a little bit but otherwise let them go. Phillip, on the other hand, would’ve bailed Tanden out about 5 seconds into Jennings’ response to her smug January 6 whatabouting of the Tesla firebugs.
Tanden, who upon discovering she didn’t have the votes for OMB went on to serve as Biden’s staff secretary, had no real response for Jennings beyond the tie ins to January 6th. As it is, her arguments crumbled once Jennings rightly tore into her for incorrectly assuming his stance on the J6 pardons. At one point, Tanden gets so frazzled that she drops her coffee mug on the floor, which broke the tension at the table.

Meanwhile, Mediaite more accurately pointed out that Jennings “lost it” on Tanden for bringing up the Capitol riot. Bonilla went on to huff that “There is no justification for violence in response to viewpoint differences” — but didn’t mention that the son of his then-boss, Brent Bozell, took part in the riot, a fact that the MRC largely censored.

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Bonilla also didn’t mention that Tanden trolled Jennings the next day, mocking him as “so emotional” and demonstrating that, despite his (and Bonilla’s) claim to the contrary, Jennings never actually criticized the pardons for the Capitol rioters.

The Media Research Center continued to heap praise on Scott Jennings for saying right-wing things:

Curtis Houck served up an April 30 post demonstrating just how much of a right-wing lackey Jennings is:

After having flown to Michigan on Air Force One and weighed in prior to and during President Trump’s rally marking 100 days in office, CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings briefly took the stage with the President as he was thanked for “defending me all the time on CNN” and being a “really great” and “terrific” person.
Jennings made it count, joking about needing to buy a farm in the Wolverine State since he “own[s]” so “many libs.”
While some might say it’s been a meteoric rise for Jennings, he’s really been at this on CNN since 2017 and the first Trump administration, not afraid to tell the truth and bring a sorely underrepresented view of mainstream America to the network of corporate liberals.
Jennings was brief, but deadly: “Thank you. Michigan, we were flying in here today, and I said, look at these farms. I got to get a farm in Michigan, because when you own as many libs as I do, you got to put a place to put them all. Thank you all very much.”
Cue the race hustlers in the liberal media to extrapolate something out of that hilarious one-liner.

Houck didn’t explain how anything Jennings said was supposed to be “hilarious,” or how that particular remark was supposed to set off “race hustlers in the liberal media” (spoiler: it didn’t).

Meanwhile, the MRC continued to censor Jennings’ missteps, according to Mediaite:

“Jennings got flattened by commentator Rula Jebreal when he claimed it was just her opinion that Israel violated a ceasefire agreement — when it was reported in Israeli newspapers and The New York Times.’
“CNN anchor Abby Phillip smacked down analyst Scott Jennings when he defended President Donald Trump’s decision to ban the Associated Press for ignoring his demand they alter their editorial guidance.”
“CNN anchor Abby Phillip schooled GOP analyst Scott Jennings about a basic grammar-school fact during a debate about President Donald Trump’s “war” rationale for actions to deport individuals while skirting due process.”
“CNN anchor Abby Phillip fired back at GOP analyst Scott Jennings over President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, quipping that “backing down isn’t leverage — backing down is just backing down.”

Needless to say, the MRC will never tell you the frequency of Jennings’ screw-ups.

Radio show

A July 2 post by Curtis Houck gushed over Jennings’ new radio gig:

On Wednesday morning, our friends at Salem Media announced that CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings — a 2025 MRC Bulldog Award winner, daily viral sensation, and conservative star — will be joining their radio side starting on July 14 for a weekday talk show at 2:00 p.m. Eastern.
Jennings has plenty of experience in the radio and podcasting sphere, most recently hosting the podcast Flyover Country and served last year as a fill-in host on the Salem Radio Network for the great Mike Gallagher.
[…]
In a press release, Jennings added: “We’re going on offense. Every day, I’ll take calls, interview big names, and take the fight directly to the liberal machine. It’s time to bust the narratives and bring back some plain old common sense.”
Jennings will be in prime real estate on Salem’s schedule, airing between The Charlie Kirk Showand The Hugh Hewitt Show. The spot is currently held by Human Events’s Jack Posobiec, but he will remain with Salem on their podcast network.
Since he first started his regular appearances on CNN in 2017, Jennings has become one of the most recognizable conservatives, obliterating liberal narratives through unflinching yet civil debate and simultaneously winning friends and plaudits from across the aisle.

Houck refused to disclose the fact that all those “prime” Salem radio hosts are right-wingers, calling into question just how “prime” they really are. Instead, he threw in one final gush: “Based on how you, dear readers, react to Jennings content and our videos on X of Jennings, this is sure to be a hit.”

Just a week or so after his debut, the MRC’s nepo-baby boss conveniently made an appearance on Jennings’ show:

On Friday, MRC President David Bozell joined The Scott Jennings Show to discuss a historic victory: the House vote to defund PBS and NPR. Hosted by Jennings, CNN’s lone voice of reason and MRC’s Bulldog Award winner for “Outstanding Achievement Behind Enemy Lines,” the show spotlighted MRC’s decades-long campaign to end taxpayer funding for these far-left outlets.
Bozell credited MRC’s persistent evidence-gathering for exposing the progressive bias that fueled this legislation, declaring, “The MRC’s been bringing the receipts on NPR and PBS for 38 years.”
Writer Kurt Etheridge failed to disclose that an MRC writer had gushed over Jennings’ show just a couple weeks earlier, which makes his boss’ appearance on the show a little too convenient. He followed with more gushing from Jennings:

Jennings closed by praising the MRC: “I thank you, David, and your dad and the Media Research Center for pushing this campaign for years and finally getting it over the finish line.”

Jennings reciprocated for Tim Graham’s Nov. 21 podcast:

Conservative CNN contributor Scott Jennings stars in viral clips for the verbal battles he has on NewsNight with Abby Phillip. How does he prepare for TV combat? He explains his CNN battles and discusses his new book on Trump, A Revolution of Common Sense: How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. Buy it here.
We gave Jennings a Bulldog Award winner for Outstanding Achievement Behind Enemy Lines. MRC president David Bozell joined me to interview the man. Scott says he didn’t know Trump well until February, when he began interviewing him for this book. He told us that behind the scenes that Trump is quite funny and asks a lot of questions and listens a lot, which isn’t the cartoon you see on TV.
While some people were suggesting Jennings for Press Secretary before the new term began, Scott had warm words for how Trump’s communications professionals were doing.

Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he? Graham also failed to disclose that Jennings’ appearance was a reciperocal deal for Bozell appearance on Jennings’ show shortly after it began.

Houck served up more gushing praise of Jennings in a Dec. 17 post:

Axios’s Tal Axelrod delivered a welcome scoop Wednesday that, starting in 2026, Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow and CNN senior political commentator (and 2025 MRC Bulldog Award winner) Scott Jennings would occupy the three hours of radio previously filled by the late Charlie Kirk on the Salem Radio Network, marking a step up for the pair from their previous roles inside Salem.
Launching January 5, Axelrod explained Marlow and Jennings would split the noon to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Kirk held until his September 10 murder with Marlow hosting from noon to 1:00 p.m. Eastern and Jennings taking the remaining two hours.
In Jennings’s case, this marked an expansion of The Scott Jennings Radio Show that began on July 14 as a one-hour program at 2:00 p.m. Eastern that both this writer and Media Research Center President David Bozell have made guest appearances.

Houck did not disclose how his nepo-baby boss had contributed to Jennings’ show just a few months earlier.

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