CNN’s Scott Jennings Grilled on Trump’s ‘Corruption Problem’: See His Response

Scott Jennings, froze up before responding when asked if “Donald Trump and the Trump administration have a corruption problem” on The Fifth Column podcast.

The CNN commentator and supporter of Trump, who has emerged as a top contender to become the next White House press secretary, took more than five seconds before answering the question. “That’s a very generic question,” he eventually said.

Host Michael Moynihan told Jennings he’d break it down “in the easiest way possible,” citing some of Trump’s recent controversies, including his son Donald Trump Jr.‘s son’s wedding being paid for by a Russian oligarch. “Well, I think they paid him back,” Jennings countered.”

But Moynihan pointed out that that was only because “it was covered by the media,” noting, “You think they were like, ‘We’ll get you next Tuesday?’ It became a news story, and then Trump was like, ‘They paid them back.’ I don’t think it was going to be. It was a gift.”

After the hosts brought up some more examples, Jennings inisisted, “I’ll be candid with you. This is not my social world. I don’t necessarily exist in that world. I’m generally– I’m just a son of a garbage man from Kentucky. But my general expectation of them is that they should follow all the applicable laws and ethics regulations, and I believe that they are. Do I think that the Democrats are going to, if they were to win any majority of either chamber, do I think they’re going to dig into all this? Absolutely.”

He continued, “My only advice would be make sure you’re dotting every I and crossing every T as it relates to the existing laws and regs. And if you do those things – and people will make claims about you or people make attacks about you – the best defense to anything is to say, ‘We follow all the laws, we follow the rules.’ And that would be my advice.”

Matt Welch brought up how “the brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates invested $500 million in World Liberty Financial four days before the inauguration. And it was secret. It was secret and the Trump family got $187 million and the Witkoff family got $31 million. And we found out about it a year later.”

He pointed out that that “seems terrible,” but Jennings refused to address the specifics. “Like I said, in any specific item you could bring up in this regard, my only advice to anybody would be follow all the rules, follow all of the laws, document everything and be prepared for a probing if the other party becomes the majority party,” he concluded.