CNN's Scott Jennings is considering a race to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell as Kentucky senator.
The MAGA mouthpiece has been mentioned as a potential candidate in a growing Republican primary field as the successor to the longtime GOP Senate leader, who is retiring after more than 40 years as a senator, but he's waiting to receive president Donald Trump's blessing, reported The Daily Beast.
“If the president wants me, I’ll run,” Jennings told a tipster who passed along the tidbit to the website's "Swamp" newsletter. “If he wants somebody else, I’ll support that candidate."
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Jennings made those comments at an event described by "The Swamp" as "a bougie espresso martini-swilling party at the Swiss ambassador’s residence following the White House Correspondents’ bash."
Five insiders in Kentucky Republican politics told the Lexington Herald-Leader the 47-year-old communications professional, who had been a longtime aide and adviser to McConnell, was being lobbied by Washington power brokers to enter the race.
“I think he’s carefully observing the field as a possible contender,” said one GOP insider. “People are seriously talking about it.”
Those GOP sources agreed Jennings, who graduated as a McConnell Scholar from the senator's alma mater, the University of Louisville, was waiting for Trump to give him the go-ahead to announce a campaign.
“Ultimately, I believe Scott thinks the primary is and ought to be in the president’s hands,” said a person affiliated with Jennings, "and nobody is doing more for President Trump on the national stage right now than Scott.”
MAGA insiders, including vice president JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr., have thrown their support behind tech entrepreneur Nate Morris as the favorite in the GOP primary to replace McConnell.
“The last thing Kentucky needs is another puppet for Mitch McConnell running for office," Morris has said.
Kentucky Republican strategist T.J. Litafik put the odds of Jennings entering the race at 15-1, saying he already had a lucrative and highly influential perch at CNN, which gave him a "substantial" pay raise as Trump returned to office.
“I don’t know if he’s ever seen himself in the Senate or Congress," Litafik said, according to the reporting.. "I know what my answer would be if I had to choose between a sweetheart gig on a major network versus the way politics works now.”
