A CNN panel was sent into a frenzy after a conservative pundit claimed Josh Shapiro was dropped as Kamala Harris’ running mate because the Democratic Party is “awash in anti-Semitism.”
Contributor Scott Jennings, a former staffer to President George W. Bush, appeared to anger his fellow panelists after speculating that Shapiro’s religion was the main reason Harris excluded him from the list.
But the conversation quickly turned to casual comments about abortion and school lunches.
Jennings initially claimed Harris had “surrendered to the radical left” by choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. He speculated that the choice of Shapiro, who is Jewish, would have angered the party’s far-left wing.
Jennings’ comments were quickly met with backlash from other panel members, who oddly responded by bringing up Jan. 6 and Walz’s past support for free lunches for children in schools.
Conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings received an angry backlash from his fellow panelists after claiming the Democratic Party is “awash in anti-Semitism.”
Jennings’ comments on the presidential race came shortly after Harris introduced Walz as her vice presidential pick at a rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday.
Shapiro had been seen as the front-runner to be on Harris’s list, but his past support for Israel became a sticking point for many amid outrage over high civilian casualties in Gaza in recent months.
Following nationwide protests and waning support among young voters within the Democratic Party, Jennings argued that Harris caved to pressure by not selecting Shapiro.
“Kamala Harris bowed completely to the radical left of her party by not choosing Shapiro, who is Jewish. There was a nasty campaign against her,” he said.
‘Everybody knows it, nobody wants to admit it, but everybody knows it, and she ended up choosing the person who wasn’t Jewish and wasn’t as talented.’
Contributor Ashley Allison quickly responded to Jennings’ comments, comparing Harris’ decision to “one of the big issues of this election: a woman’s right to choose.”
“Guess what? Kamala Harris had to make a choice, and she had to choose who her running mate was going to be and who she was going to be with for the next 90 days and maybe the next four years and maybe the next eight years,” he said.
“You can’t tell her who she has to compete with, she can choose, that’s what leaders do.”
Contributor Ashley Allison, left, responded to Jennings’ comments by bringing up the issue of Jan. 6 and Walz’s past support for free lunches for school children.
The CNN panel discussed why Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, once the front-runner to be the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee, was passed over for Kamala Harris.
Although Jennings had not mentioned Walz’s past support for free school meals for children, Allison then said the conservative thought Walz “is a radical because he wants to feed children.”
“You know who’s hungry? White kids, black kids, brown kids, poor kids,” he continued.
“I didn’t say that,” Jennings replied.
Allison then compared Walz’s characterization as “radical” to Donald Trump’s failure to tell his supporters he had lost the election before the January 6 riots following the last election.
“That’s radical, that’s your boy,” she concluded.
Former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod weighed in on the debate and dismissed Jennings’ speculation about Harris’s thinking.
“Anti-Semitism is something that many of us have faced in different ways, and so has my family,” she said. “I don’t like it being exploited.”
As Jennings tried to make his case, correspondent Jamie Gangel chimed in with “sources” about Harris’s vetting process for vice president.
On Tuesday, Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate instead of Shapiro.
“Scott, Scott, Scott,” he began. “Wait a minute, take note. I think it’s important to add to that two things we have from our reporting,” he said.
‘One of them is that even before this selection, Josh Shapiro had some, let’s say, doubts or questions about whether he wanted to be number two.
‘You may remember that three weeks ago, there were a lot of people who weren’t sure that Kamala Harris was the most interesting candidate. Now everything is very different, and he is someone who definitely has ambitions to run and was thinking about the future.
‘And we have new reports tonight from our team that, in fact, when he went to his vetting meeting and also in his in-person meeting with Harris, he made it very clear what kind of vice president he wanted her to be.
“It was more of a two-for-one thing. He wants to be in the room. He wanted to have a say in these matters.”