Conservative commentator Scott Jennings clashed with “CNN Newsnight” host Abby Phillip and other panelists over who’s to blame for soaring gas prices, surprisingly admitting President Donald Trump’s policies are behind the spiking costs before trying to pivot and change the rules when he finds himself cornered.
Jennings acknowledged Trump launched “a war that led to higher gas prices,” but then insisted it was “for a worthy cause,” according to Mediate.
New York Post correspondent Lydia Moynihan was also part of the conversation, and she tried to compare Trump’s war on Iran and the related soaring fuel prices with Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Phillip fired back asking, “Did President Trump initiate a war that led to higher gas prices?”
Moynihan tried to avoid the question but Jennings agreed Trump is to blame in a debate that got increasingly heated.
“Did President Trump initiate a war that led to higher gas prices?” Phillip asked again.
“It depends who you ask,” Moynihan hedged.
But Phillip pushed back. “Who initiated this particular conflict?”
That’s when right-winger Jennings stunningly admitted that Trump is to blame.
“Look, the answer is yes. The answer is yes,” he conceded.
Phillip continued, “The answer is yes. That’s it.”
But Jennings wasn’t done.
“But the question is, was it a worthy cause?” he interjected.
Phillip wasn’t having any of it. “That’s actually not the question,” she shot back, sticking him in a corner.
“That’s how the politics shake out,” Jennings yelled over other panelists.
In terms of a worthy cause, Americans have heard varying official rationales offered for why Trump launched a massive and ongoing air assault on Iran on Feb. 28. He and his administration have repeatedly shifted the explanation for why the president took the U.S. into a foreign war when he spent years campaigning against foreign military intervention.
First, the administration said it was to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons after it spent months last year crowing that the U.S., while assisting Israel in its attack on Iran last June, had annihilated its nuclear capabilities.
Trump and administration officials then tried to claim Tehran was within weeks of producing a missile that could strike the United States.
The president also initially insisted the military campaign was over regime change, citing Iran’s killing of protesters during months of demonstrations over economic conditions in the country, followed by Tehran’s use of proxy militants across the region.
The shifting reasoning continues, with the war now in its fourth week. Trump claimed on Thursday, March 19, the Islamic Republic posed an “imminent threat.”
Meantime gas prices are averaging $3.91 a gallon nationally, according to Triple A, up almost a dollar in just the past month.
Iran’s blockade of the crucial Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of the global oil supply passes through every day, has caused a jump in crude oil prices to as high as $119 a barrel, The Hill reported.
