CNN's Scott Jennings Pounces on Panelist Who Criticized Trump's Tariffs

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On April 2, President Donald Trump announced that he would impose reciprocal tariffs to address "horrendous imbalances" in trade with foreign nations.

Many critics said this would harm the economy, cause a recession and much worse. To date, this hasn't happened. Quite the opposite, in fact.

On Wednesday, CNN's conservative commentator Scott Jennings took one of those critics to task over comments he had made days after Trump's tariff announcement.

Jennings reminded CNN International host Richard Quest of what he said about Trump's tariffs previously.

"I would just like to go back — I would like to build a DeLorean and go back to April, when everybody here was predicting ‘likely to cause a recession, investment stops and a recession happens, they‘re not talking about a U.S. recession, they‘re talking about a global recession, lead to recession, eventually, there will be a recession,” Jennings said, referencing the time travel car from the 1985 movie “Back to the Future."

Quest said, “So, very cleverly, very cleverly — hang on a chosen. If he’s chosen to use my words, I just want to point out — just a second, sir.”

Jennings shot back, "I just want to point out, you called the recession. You called it. You took your shoe off."

Quest asked, "Would you like to see that again?"

Jennings continued to remind Quest about his dire predictions.

And also noted how well the economy was doing even after the President enacted tariffs.

Jennings has been having these conversations with others at CNN besides just Quest.

Jennings said to Quest during their exchange, "You took your shoe off. You brought cookies out here."

Quest replied, "15% shoe!”

What?

Jennings continued, "You took your shoe off and you said there was going to be a recession."

Quest said it was too early to know what damage the tariffs might have caused.

Jennings responded, “Richard, I am just a journalist and all I can do is read the economic data: 3% GDP. Trade deals. Record high in the stock market. Cooling inflation.”

Quest was not happy throughout the exchange, refusing to hear from Jennings - and seemingly anyone else - how well the American economy was doing.

The economy continues to do well. The debate over tariffs isn't going away anytime soon.

But one thing is for certain: Scott Jennings has made CNN a hell of a lot more watchable and entertaining than it used to be.