‘Jimmy Kimmel Out Here Crying?!’ Scott Jennings Gets CNN Panel to Boil By Trashing ‘Political Activist’ Late-Night Hosts
CNN’s Scott Jennings riled up a panel after he tore into late night comedians and they’re reaction to President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.
On News Night with Abby Phillip, Jennings blasted Jimmy Kimmel for “crying” over the election and asked when liberal late night comedians would try to actually be funny again. Jennings did praise HBO’s Bill Maher, saying the liberal comedian who often targets “woke” liberals “gets it.”
“The rest of these people have become pathetic. I mean, they stopped being comedians and they started becoming political activists. I mean, Jimmy Kimmel out here crying? I mean, it’s pathetic. And so my my question is, if you’re going to have a late night comedy show, at some point people might expect it to be funny and not just a constant political screed against one party, and I don’t I don’t know that this activism for four more years is sustainable if you’re going to market something as comedy, but the actual product is nothing more than sort of a low brow political activism,” Jennings said.
“These people represent the way a lot of people feel, so it’d actually be interesting if the Trump folks could actually make us feel like, ‘we’re not going to take away your rights,’ and that doesn’t make sense, you think it doesn’t make sense a lot of people actually think that makes sense. That’s the way a lot of people feel,” writer and podcaster Touré shot back.
“That is their audience,” Phillip added.
“Is that their mission? To be activists and not comedians?” Jennings asked.
“Well, sometimes the comedian does stop telling jokes and says serious things,” Touré said.
Jennings stuck to his point.
“During the Biden years, there was nobody who provided more comedy fodder possible than Joe Biden,” Jennings said, igniting new outrage in the panel as Touré, Phillip, and others insisted President Joe Biden was made fun of while Jennings rejected this.
Podcaster Josh Barro cut through the crosstalk to argue the biggest problem for comedians is that people are “a little bored” of Trump.
“People might also want an escape,” Phillip said, adding that humor will not “go over too well” with this “new crowd,” citing Elon Musk’s criticism of Dana Carvey’s Saturday Night Live impression of him. Trump has said numerous times Musk will have a role in. his administration.
As panelists piled on Trump and some of his past controversial statements, Jennings said Trump was “the only one telling jokes in this election.”
“In the best of times and in the best and the worst of times, what comedy does exceptionally well is tell a story about who we are as an American people,” CNN contributor Leah Wright Rigueur added. “One thing I will add in before we go to break is that I think that we are actually going to see a significant rise in the amount of comedy that is directed at the left and at the Democratic Party because comedy at its best is about punching up, not punching down.”
Watch above via CNN.
