CNN resident conservative Scott Jennings went a furious meltdown aimed at MSNBC's veteran commentator Lawrence O'Donnell after the latter accused him of lying live on air.
The vicious feud erupted as O'Donnell said Jennings, who frequently gets into rows with CNN panel members as he defends President Donald Trump, of being a "paid liar."
"During the first Trump presidential campaign and presidency, CNN regularly paid Trump supporters to lie about Trump on CNN," O'Donnell argued on his MSNBC show, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.
O'Donnell specifically criticized Jennings' evolution from a former Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) aide who could once "criticize some of the more extreme Trump positions," to what he called "the JD Vance of CNN".
Jennings responded forcefully on his radio show, dismissing O'Donnell as "irrelevant" and a "lunatic."
"There's this lunatic on MSNBC at 10 o'clock every night named Lawrence O'Donnell," Jennings said. "I had sort of forgotten that he was a thing, but I guess he still has a show, and he went crazy, crazy on yours truly the other night."
The CNN commentator defended himself against the accusations of lying, asking rhetorically, "Someone at MSNBC is accusing someone else of lying? From that propaganda outfit over there? They're accusing me or anyone else of lying? Outrageous."
Jennings also said of O'Donnell: "He's irrelevant, nobody likes his show" and asserting that Abby Phillip's CNN show, which airs at the same time and has Jennings as a frequent guest, was "kicking his rear end by 30 percent on a nightly basis".
However, viewership data tells a different story. O'Donnell's show actually brings in twice as many viewers as NewsNight, making it the second most popular show on MSNBC and the 84th overall on television. NewsNight ranks fifth on CNN and 157th overall.
Jennings, an ardent supporter of President Trump who recently published a book about Trump's second term, concluded his critique with a blunt message to O'Donnell: "You're a failure."
