Jennings tried to gloss over concerns about the pain people are feeling at the pump, and his cohort Kaitlan Collins on CNN shut him down when he tried to paint it as a “non-story.”
She should have shot him down on the notion that they’re not up as well. Prior to Trump attacking Iran, gas was around $2.96 a gallon. Although prices have eased, they’re still up around $3.90 a gallon, which is higher than they were before the war started.
COLLINS: Yes, I mean, but also just, Scott, on the Nixon comment. When Vance compares himself to Nixon, saying, That sounds a lot like me. Is that a comparison you would want made if you were the Vice President?
JENNINGS: I mean, that’s up to him. He was sitting at the Nixon Library, I assume, talking to an audience full of Nixon aficionados. So, I assume there was some amount of playing off the crowd there. So, hard for me — hard for me to say. I also think some of it sounded a little tongue-in-cheek to me.
Look, Richard Nixon has a presidential library. They host a lot of big events. They host a lot of major speakers. Republicans, and I think even some Democrats go there and make speeches. And so, I don’t think the Vice President is alone in doing that, and I don’t think it’s really out of line to say something nice about the person whose name is on the building.
If I might debate my friend, Mitch, on some of what he just said. Look, gas prices are not up, they’re down, below $4 a gallon, nationally, oil is trading at $71 a barrel. We don’t run the gas price tracker on the screen anymore, for a reason, you know? I mean, it’s because it’s a non-story.
The pool was vandalized. You keep bringing up the pool. It was vandalized by people who were so broken-brained about our politics, that they went out there and vandalized the pool. It’s in the court documents, which you can read yourself today.
And, as it relates to costs. The Republicans cut taxes. Working people all over this country got major tax refunds. We have a booming job market. We have a stock market that’s up. Right now, we have an economy that’s on the upswing because of Republican policies. And we’ve got insane Democrats winning primaries, promising socialism all over this country.
Those are the facts, and that’s the argument that will be carried to the election.
COLLINS: And Mitch, I’m going to let you respond.
But Scott, on two things.
One, on the gas prices. I mean, the President doesn’t think they’re a non-story because, he was sounding like President Biden yesterday, saying that these companies are gouging people, saying the DOJ, he needs — he wants to look into it, as he was arguing yesterday because, he doesn’t think prices are coming down fast enough. So, he’s been talking about that.
But two, Scott, I am kind of taken, though. Just because people who watch you every night, you know, we have you on the show a bunch, you are not very defensive of those comments that were made at the Nixon Library. You seem to be saying, you know — you don’t seem to be defending them very much.
JENNINGS: I mean, look, it’s up to him how he wants to define himself and compare himself to historical figures. It’s up to every politician to do that. There’s some things about the Richard Nixon presidency that I think are worthy of mention and worthy of admiration. And obviously, they did some things that are not worthy of admiration. And we know how history played out. It’s hard for me to–
COLLINS: But Scott, my point is that’s not what — that’s not the point the Vice President made. He didn’t say, Look at what Nixon did with China, we’re doing something similar to that. He was saying, Look at Watergate, it would have never taken down a president today. It would have been a 12-hour story, and actually, it was the deep state who took Nixon down.
I mean, he was specifically talking about Watergate. He wasn’t talking about Nixon’s other achievements–
JENNINGS: No.
COLLINS: –of which I agree, there are several.
JENNINGS: Yes. Look, it’s interesting academic conversation.
LANDRIEU: I can make–
JENNINGS: I mean, I — you know, if something like that had happened today, does our politics work the same way today that it worked then? It’s an interesting academic conversation. But that’s really all it is. It’s academic. It happened in history, and we live at a different point. So, I, you know, I don’t know how to analyze it beyond that, really.
COLLINS: Mr. Mayor.
LANDRIEU: But let me — as Scott said, let me — let me kind of contradict my friend Scott.
Richard Nixon started the EPA, that was a really good thing. He also started revenue sharing. He was actually pretty good in working with the mayors across America to help rebuild the country, and for that, he should be given credit.
But that’s not what JD Vance was doing. JD Vance was dismissing corruption that Richard Nixon engaged in, that created an impeachable offense, as though somehow that — you know, that’s not a big thing. And if it happened today under Donald Trump — maybe that’s what Donald Trump said because he’s done things that are worse than that. There’s no question about that.
But that’s that — that comment, you will see that comment many, many times in campaigns going forward. When you consider the chaos and the confusion and the corruption coming out of the Trump administration, and the Vice President dismissing it, I think the American public’s ears go up.
And look, I’ll let him defend himself. I think Scott’s right. The Vice President has the right to define himself any way that he wanted. That was not a wise thing for him to say, if he wants people to think that he might be President of the United States one day.
COLLINS: Yes, it’s just notable that it comes on a week of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s book coming out, where Trump was comparing himself, quoting someone to Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and their power. Nixon, and the JD Vance comment.