CNN: Scott Jennings Gets Candid About Republicans 2028 Election Chances to Kasie Hunt

Scott Jennings has shared his thoughts on what JD Vance needs to do to have a successful presidential campaign, should the current Vice President decide to run for office in 2028.

Appearing on The Arena with Kasie Hunt on Monday afternoon (December 22), the CNN conservative commentator was asked about controversial figures such as  Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, and whether the MAGA movement should want them as voices in a 2028 election.

Hunt said there is a “divergence of interests,” per Mediaite, saying “the people who are running for office” need to ask themselves if they’re “willing to tolerate having these people who are fundamentally out to make money, often to shock, often to create conflict, are they going to be allowed to speak for the MAGA movement?”

Jennings agreed with Hunt’s overall point, noting recent tensions within the Republican base, including the on-stage showdown between Carlson and Ben Shapiro over the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“I don’t disagree with you,” Jennings told Hunt. “I think ultimately it will be up to the nominee of the party, most likely JD Vance, to basically say, who’s in my group and who’s out, and to separate himself from people who are trafficking in hate and conspiracy theories.”

Touching on the Carlson and Shapiro clash at the Turning Point USA event, Jennings stated, “The debate happening on the stage was one thing. There really wasn’t that much of a debate in the crowd. I think some of the civil war talk is a bit of a mirage. When you actually look at the results of the polling among the people in the stands.”

“Tucker was on the stage attacking Republicans who were up there saying, ‘We have to worry about radical Islam,'” the MAGA pundit continued. “He was kind of defending it up there. That wasn’t where the crowd was at all. And so I think some of the people who are dabbling in some of these things that I think are wrong, they don’t have as much support among the people in that crowd as they think they do now.”

Jennings added that the kind of rhetoric peddled by the likes of Carlson might have a benefit in “growing an online audience,” but the public arena “is much more where Charlie [Kirk] was, much more where Ben is, than where some of these conspiracy provocateurs are.”

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The CNN segment came just days after recent polling showed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slightly ahead of Vance in a hypothetical 2028 presidential race. Pablo Manríquez, the editor of Migrant Insider, asked AOC about the poll and whether she thinks she could beat Vance in a head-to-head battle.

“Listen, these polls, like, three years out, are, you know, they are what they are,” she said before adding, “But let the record show, I would stomp him.”

Last Thursday (December 18), Fox News political analyst Guy Benson shocked long-time host Stuart Varney when he said he believed AOC could win the presidency in 2028.

“I’m not sure there’s such a thing as unelectable anymore in America. In a normal election cycle, I don’t think she could win, but under a circumstance where the public is fed up with the Republicans or the incumbents, and she’s representing major change, I absolutely could see her winning,” Benson explained.