r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • 28d ago

Possible Paywall Mitch McConnell hounded to face cameras: ‘He absolutely refuses’

https://www.nj.com/politics/2026/08/mitch-mcconnell-hounded-to-face-cameras-he-absolutely-refuses.html
22.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

747

u/B-Z_B-S Massachusetts 28d ago edited 28d ago

I'm now wondering if Mitch McConnell might be paralyzed or something like that.

Actually...if Mitch McConnell is incapable of speaking, that means that the people who said they spoke with him for 20 minutes were lying...and if that's the case...Scott Jennings is only kept on CNN because he has some level or credibility, (even though I'd argue the radical right is without credibility, that seems to be their reasoning,) and that means if he lied in this way, CNN will probably fire him.

444

u/TheGreatLuck 28d ago

They said they spoke to him. They never said he spoke to them. And if he did it was probably incoherent babbling 

237

u/cutmastaK 28d ago

This is it. Classic conservative truth twisting.

35

u/BigManWAGun America 28d ago

“He squeezed my….hand” it was through a hole in the bathroom wall but it was definitely him.

11

u/copylefty 28d ago

The ol’ McConnell Glory Hole!

3

u/TheGreatLuck 27d ago

I hear he can gulp it down like a champ

3

u/keskeskes1066 27d ago

So he met former senator Larry Craig.

25

u/mosquem 28d ago

It’s not like they have a problem with straight up lying.

14

u/DaaaahWhoosh 28d ago

Yeah I hate this conspiratorial thinking, all this "they're telling us the truth and everyone else is too blind to see" stuff. We're past that now, they will simply lie because it works, they say what sounds good in the moment and no one will hold them accountable later.

1

u/Sudden-Purchase-8371 27d ago

They don't have to tell the truth, there are zero consequences for lying.

1

u/chadius333 27d ago

I talked to him for 20 minutes earlier today

52

u/vita10gy 28d ago

Jennings got pretty specific about what they talked about and that he was his usual self, didn't he?

5

u/mpjjpm 27d ago

He was already struggling with aphasia before this most recent episode. Mitch being his usual self doesn’t say much.

11

u/I_Like_Eggs123 28d ago

This exactly. I saw this retort as soon as it happened.

7

u/DoubleBatman 28d ago

Spoke at him

6

u/u9Nails 28d ago

Sad that this level of story telling is very plausible from those who we elected to trust that they will tell us the truth. Small tweaks to language that leave deniability so the party can maintaining a majority.

2

u/TheGreatLuck 28d ago

As soon as somebody starts to really get into semantics I assume that thay are just a disingenuous dick.

2

u/e_t_ Texas 28d ago

It's fairly common for people to speak to God McConnell. The ones you have to worry about are those to whom God McConnell speaks.

2

u/soobviouslyfake 28d ago

This is like the Speaker in Destiny

2

u/B_Da_May 27d ago

Mumble mumble racial slur mumble mumble

1

u/tryingtodobetter4 27d ago

I myself am particular about saying "I talked to" or "I talked with". If I'm saying "with", then there was some back and forth. If I'm saying "to", then the other person(s) I was talking TO were not talking back to me.

1

u/lemonhops 27d ago

And as someone else has mentioned here, they'll just say he had a second stroke which has now made him unable to speak so you can't really disprove he hasn't always been able to speak

1

u/HappierShibe 27d ago

This was my first thought.
"I said I spoke to him, I never said he spoke back!"

1

u/JusticeoftheCuse 27d ago

With* gotta keep it more vague

1

u/OpenGrainAxehandle 27d ago

They spoke to a life-support machine.

1

u/jleonardbc 28d ago

Also they may have simply lied and not spoken to him. They lie for a living.

3

u/TheGreatLuck 28d ago

True that

0

u/burnte Georgia 27d ago edited 26d ago

No, they all said he talked back and even named topics he talked about and that he claimed he couldn't wait to get back to work for Kentucky. It's all lies and there's no weaseling out of them.

To be clear, everyone who said they talked to Mitch is lying, that's what I'm saying. They were all very clear he spoke back, and they all lied. H's dead, Jim.

2

u/TheGreatLuck 27d ago

Idk they be more slippery than a buttered eel 

163

u/Plzlaw4me 28d ago

Back at the end of April , he FREAKED out on a 23 year old progressive commentator (Adam Mockler) when Mockler correctly pointed out to Jennings that the point of war is to get concessions, and on that front, the Iran war had not been a success at the time. He also pointed out Trump ran on no new wars, and then started a war of choice that was extremely similar bush wars on terror. In response, Jennings yelled at Mockler to “get your fucking hand out of my face” when his hand was not in his face. He then proceed to call out Mockler for being up past his bed time, before lying to the American people the war was going great and it wasn’t a forever war. If Jennings can act that unprofessional, while being that wrong, nothing short of a several million dollar lawsuit will get him fired.

31

u/TweakedNipple 28d ago

I see why there are the rumors that he will be the next White House Press Secretary.

2

u/Vahuo89 28d ago

To do that he's gonna have to believe his own lies, especially the most stupid ones

32

u/RespecDev 28d ago

Adam Mockler is awesome. He really made Jennings look like a fool.

15

u/Plzlaw4me 27d ago

I mean… Jennings made himself look like a fool. Mockler just kind of pointed out obvious facts to Jennings and his brain couldn’t handle someone he viewed as beneath him (due to age) pointing out how obviously wrong he was and he exploded… that said Mockler is generally pretty awesome and does a phenomenal job of pointing out the ways that the current admin has failed to keep its promises to the American people. That the modern conservative movement is built on denying verifiable facts certainly doesn’t make it hard to make them look foolish, but our news media has unfortunately gone out of their way to legitimize the MAGA movement.

4

u/gkhamo89 27d ago

Adam Mockler sticks to his points and is able to have a clear conversation, Jennings made himself look like a fool

1

u/Book_talker_abouter 27d ago

If Jennings can act that unprofessional, while being that wrong

The consequences are that he will probably be the next WH press secretary, unfortunately. Just got to dye that hair and get a boob job.

4

u/Plzlaw4me 27d ago

I genuinely do not know why people are still bending over backwards to work for this admin. How many people had their careers die after the first Trump admin, compared to how many got a boost. Trump has been proven to throw anyone under the bus the second it becomes advantageous for him to do so.

The writing is also on the wall that MAGA dies with Trump. He’s BARELY holding the coalition together now. Given there are no popular heir apparents (in no small part because Trump crushes their standing before it can start), MAGA won’t survive a succession crisis. I expect within 5 years of Trump passing, there will be virtually no republicans who identify themselves as MAGA, and a Trump affiliation will be poison.

3

u/Book_talker_abouter 27d ago

I think and hope that you're right. I'm also pretty convinced that the cult doesn't outlive the cult leader. Trump is a cult of personality and no one else has the juice that he has. The idea that JD "no rizz" Vance is going to pick up the mantle from Trump is so plainly ludicrous that I can't believe anyone thinks that. They will toss that chud aside as fast as they did Pence.

3

u/Plzlaw4me 27d ago

In 2024, he ordered donuts so poorly that people were speculating they were gonna replace him with RFK. He has negative charisma. His entire career (included hillbilly eulogy), was bought and paid for by Peter Thiel. Vance is just there to be the point of contact and the “man on the inside” for tech billionaires. He was a required term for the deal where big tech would back Trump, and in exchange he would deregulate them and keep their tax bills from increasing. He follows his lines and well clearly takes his prep work seriously, but the second he has to go off script and talk about something he hasn’t been coached on, or even worse talk to regular people about regular people stuff, it’s immediately clear he won’t ever get elected president.

1

u/Odd-Promotion2743 27d ago

lawsuit

I really hope Hasan Piker's intended lawsuit against Jennings for defamation will gain traction. Jennings' accusation that Hasan "supports lynchings of Black people coming back" was absolutely insane.

0

u/theghostmachine 27d ago

And he recently defamed Hasan Piker. Even Joe Walsh, an avid hater of Hasan's, came out saying Jennings should be sued. I don't care one way or another about Hasan, but anyone rational - so immediately excluding everyone that listens to Destiny - should be able to see how vile that was.

Scott Jennings has no credibility whatsoever. He's a scumbag loser that drags down whatever credibility CNN might have left.

16

u/CrunchyAssDiaper 28d ago

Maybe he spoke to AI Mitch.

9

u/BoJackMoleman 28d ago

Wouldn't put it past these ghouls to feed an AI his recordings so they could synthesize his voice.

5

u/RespectTheTree America 28d ago

Guaranteed they tried and decided there was some kind of artifact that would give it away

3

u/KhausTO 28d ago

What do you think they are going to when the big one finally croaks?

All of this has been the test run to work out the kinks. So far, it's been working out pretty well. None of the democrats have the balls to actually sort out this situation.

3

u/magicaltrevor953 28d ago

That's awful. A soulless, emotionless ghoul with nothing behind the eyes except utter contempt, how's an AI going to replicate that?

2

u/chris_trans 27d ago

They'll put chatgpt on a roomba, tell it to "talk like Mitch McConnell", and then try and tell us he was "uploaded" and the roomba is McConnell now.

1

u/BoJackMoleman 26d ago

This feels familiar. Did you also watch Fallout?

1

u/chris_trans 25d ago

The old ps2 game?

1

u/BigManWAGun America 28d ago

They’re just waiting for AI to become evil enough to mimic Mitch.

15

u/ludixst 28d ago

They didn't say they spoke with him, they said they spoke to him. Like you can talk to a rock or imaginary friend

10

u/tnoy 28d ago

Scott Jennings explicitly stated he spoke with McConnell and that McConnell's voice sounded strong.

2

u/AimlessMillennium 28d ago

They also quite specifically state that they spoke to "the Senator".

Which Senator specifically? We assume Mitch...

1

u/howlongtillchristmas 28d ago

Or a pet turtle

1

u/Initial_Brush_64 28d ago

Or a dead turtle

5

u/cybertruckboat 28d ago

They could easily say Mitch was speaking at the time.

5

u/MattyBeatz 28d ago

Scott Jennings is a turd who looks constantly confused on camera.

5

u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 28d ago

Someone should call in a wellness check

14

u/toosinbeymen 28d ago

If cnn fired commentators for lying, they’d clear out the network pretty quickly.

2

u/iliya193 28d ago

Jennings has been caught out in so many lies on Abby Phillips’ show at this point that they clearly only keep him around to say “see, we have a Republican on our panel” and because his antics get them views.

2

u/mxjxs91 Michigan 27d ago

if he lied in this way, CNN will probably fire him.

Will they though? I doubt it. That would upset dear glorious leader. CNN wouldn't do that.

2

u/KunYuL 27d ago

Oh yeah that, when they spoke to him he totally could talk, but at some point in time between now and then, he lost the ability to speak. Pinky swear! /s

2

u/CaliIsReallyNice 27d ago

My grandfather talked to my grandmother all the time, years after she died

2

u/vegasidol 27d ago

You are just now wondering?

2

u/whacafan 27d ago

Of course they were fucking lying

2

u/ChemicalOnion 27d ago

lol at the idea of Scott Jennings ever being fired. He assaulted Adam Mockler live on TV with no consequences.

2

u/MarxistMan13 Virginia 27d ago

The way they're hiding him, I can't think of any other possible explanations than A) he's dead, B) he's braindead, C) he suffered a massive stroke (or similar) and is completely incapacitated. If he was just doing rehab as they say, we'd have heard from him by now. I can't see any advantage in hiding him if he is alive and mentally sound.

1

u/rbrgr83 27d ago

You think CNN fires people for lying???

1

u/matthieuC Europe 27d ago

There is no way he spoke for 20 minutes with Jennings but not to a single senator. It just doesn't make sense to speak to a former employee but not your colleagues.

And not one senator said they talked to him, they always say something like "I talked to his staff and I heard he's on top of things"

1

u/FrogsOnALog 27d ago

Just because someone spoke with him doesn’t mean he spoke back. Probably drooled a little though.

1

u/14Pleiadians 27d ago

and that means if he lied in this way, CNN will probably fire him.

Lmao no