Scott Jennings Corners CNN Guest Host Over Penny Case: ‘You Keep Referring To Neely As The Victim’

CNN Republican commentator Scott Jennings got into a brief dust-up with guest host Audie Cornish on Tuesday, after she implied that her compassion for Jordan Neely was rooted in her Christianity rather than her political beliefs.

The conversation came about in reaction to Monday’s not guilty verdict in the New York-based case against Marine Corps veteran Daniel Penny, who subdued a violent and threatening Neely using a choke hold. Though Neely was alive when police first arrived on the scene, he later died, and Penny was charged in relation to his death.

GOP strategist @ScottJenningsKY didn't hold back when Audie Cornish invoked religion to call Jordan Neely a victim. @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/ZCOC7QuBot

— Harold Hutchison (@HaroldHutchison) December 11, 2024

The discussion began with guest Geraldo Rivera, who argued that the case against Penny had been political from the start.

Cornish interrupted him, asking what he would say “to the parents of a victim who dies in this circumstance,” suggesting that Neely — who, by multiple accounts, had been threatening other subway passengers and behaving erratically before Penny and at least one other passenger stepped in to stop him.

“You keep referring to Neely as the victim,” Jennings said then, adding, “I think Penny is the victim in this case, and I think the people on the train are the victims.”

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“I have a tendency to call the people who die a victim,” Cornish interjected. “We have different ideas about that. But to my mind, someone lost a child and I’m always going to feel for that person — that’s just how I’m built, it’s like a Christian thing. But the reason why I’m asking —”

“Are you saying I’m not a Christian?” Jennings pushed back. “Is that your assertion?”

“I’m not at all,” Cornish back-pedaled. “I just want to make sure that you understand it’s a values-based comment, not a political one.”

Jennings pushed back again: “Are you saying I don’t have any values?”

The rest of the panel jumped in to defend Cornish, telling Jennings that was not what she meant.

“He needs a clip for the internet,” Cornish claimed, turning to smile directly at the camera.

Rivera rounded out the discussion, noting that it was important to remember that everyone has family, but that Neely being someone’s son did not make him an innocent in the situation at hand.