(Video: CNN)
CNN analyst Scott Jennings, a rare conservative on the network, called out corporations during Sunday’s “State of the Union” for getting involved in politically charged issues around the country without knowing the facts, pointing to Disney as one example, while educating fellow panelist Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta.
“Republicans are really unhappy with some of these corporations in Georgia, in Florida, and elsewhere who weighed into these issues with aggressive stupidity,” Jennings said. “And that CEOs of these companies, who call up like Ron DeSantis, like the CEO of Disney did, they haven’t read the law. They buy into the narrative about a law, just like Delta and Coca-Cola, and MLB — whoever bought into the narrative about the Georgia voting law — but they didn’t bother to listen to their people or whoever about what’s actually in the law.”
“So I’m of two minds. I’m a little nervous about conservatives using government to punish people, but at the other end of it, I think somebody needs to be taught a lesson here because what they portrayed the Florida law as was not at all what it really does, and the CEO of Disney kicked open the saloon door here and started shooting from the hip and winged the bartender and the piano player without realizing where he was,” he continued. “And Ron DeSantis, the Sheriff came in, and said, not in my town.”
This prompted Bottoms to do precisely what Jennings just railed about, as she asked Jennings if “there should be criticism of a voter law that says you can’t hand out water in 90-degree weather when people are standing in line to vote in Georgia?”
That law targeted political organizations giving things to voters as they stand in line to vote.
“It is easier to vote in Georgia than it is in Delaware, than it is in New York than it is in all these other states. The way the voter law was portrayed in Georgia by the media, the way this so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill was portrayed in Florida, was a complete lie,” Jennings replied. “It was a farce. It was a narrative. And these CEOs got into a situation that then got out of their control. And I would think they would use this as a learning experience.”
After CNN political commentator Alyssa Griffin weighed in to suggest the GOP focus on inflation and other economic issues to bring out voters in the midterms, Jennings countered to effectively go to bat for the Florida governor.
“But if you’re Ron DeSantis, where he’s an expert — this man has all the right enemies. I don’t know if it’s by luck or smarts. But it doesn’t matter because he has picked all the right enemies. And this is the right enemy for him.” he said.
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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