‘Get your f–king hand out of my face’: CNN panel erupts as Jennings swears at liberal podcaster over Iran war

Key facts

• Scott Jennings swore at Adam Mockler during CNN’s ‘NewsNight with Abby Phillip’ on Thursday.
• The war between the US-Israel and Iran began on February 28 after joint strikes.
• Mockler, 23, is a progressive podcaster with MeidasTouch.
• Jennings served in the George W. Bush administration.
• A Washington Post–ABC News-Ipsos poll found 61% of Americans consider the war a mistake.
• Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth called the campaign a ‘historic military success’ in Senate testimony Thursday.
• Jennings has a history of lashing out at panelists, including Bakari Sellers in 2024.

A heated exchange on live TV

CNN commentator Scott Jennings exploded at a 23-year-old liberal podcaster during a bitter fight over the Iran war, exclaiming, “Get your f–king hand out of my face!” The outburst occurred Thursday on “NewsNight with Abby Phillip,” where Jennings and Adam Mockler clashed over the duration and success of the conflict, which began on February 28 after joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran. Mockler pressed Jennings to name a single political concession the US had extracted from Iran since the war started. When Jennings pivoted to a broader goal of preventing a nuclear-armed terrorist regime, Mockler shot back: “So you can’t answer the question.”

The argument over the war’s timeline

Mockler accused Jennings of initially insisting the war would last only four to six weeks, a claim Jennings disputed. “Eight weeks is endless?” Jennings retorted. Mockler reminded him that they had debated the issue on television four to six weeks earlier, when Jennings had said the US was “weeks away” from victory. “Now you’re making condescending remarks because you can’t defend the fact that this war is not going your way,” Mockler said. Jennings, a former George W. Bush campaign staffer, mocked Mockler’s age earlier in the show, telling him, “When you get up past your bedtime, you get hyper.”

Jennings’s failure to name a concession

When Mockler asked Jennings to “give me one political concession” Iran has made, Jennings responded with a party-line statement: “We have a very simple goal: to keep terrorists and a terrorist regime from having a nuclear weapon that could threaten the United States, our interests in the region, our allies in Europe, anybody else in the world.” Mockler dismissed the answer as a non-answer. The exchange escalated as Mockler gestured with his hands while speaking. Jennings pivoted in his chair, pointed at Mockler, and swore at him. Host Abby Phillip intervened, saying, “Hey hey, whoa whoa whoa! … Everybody hang tight … Everybody calm down, okay?”

Public opinion turns against the war

A new Washington Post–ABC News-Ipsos poll released Friday found that 61% of Americans now consider the use of military force against Iran a mistake. Pollsters compared the level of opposition to the Iraq war in 2006, when violence was at its peak, and to the Vietnam war in the early 1970s. Fewer than one in five Americans believe the campaign has been going well. Roughly four in ten say it has not been successful, and a further four in ten say it is too early to render a verdict. The results mirrored a CNN poll conducted in the very first days of the war.

The administration’s defense and partisan divide

Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, testifying before the Senate on Thursday, offered a similar line to Jennings’s argument. “We are two months into a historic military success in Iran,” Hegseth told Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, “and it’s defeatist Democrats like you that cloud the mind of the American people that would otherwise fully support preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon.” The argument that Jennings made on air before his meltdown has remained the go-to Republican position: that Democratic opposition is manufacturing the war’s unpopularity rather than reflecting it. Jennings did not respond to a request for comment on whether he would explain the outburst or apologize to Mockler.

A pattern of confrontations

Jennings has a history of lashing out at panelists who get in his personal space, including a tense moment from 2024 with Democratic commentator Bakari Sellers. Thursday’s outburst may be a reflection of the times, as the war enters its third month with no clear end in sight. The confrontation underscores the deepening partisan divide over the conflict, with the administration insisting on success while a majority of Americans question the wisdom of the military campaign. The question of what political concessions, if any, the US has gained from Iran remains unanswered.

The bottom line

• Scott Jennings swore at Adam Mockler after failing to name a political concession from the Iran war.
• The war began February 28 with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran and is now in its third month.
• A Washington Post–ABC News-Ipsos poll shows 61% of Americans consider the war a mistake.
• Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the campaign as a ‘historic military success’ in Senate testimony.
• Jennings has a history of confrontations with panelists who enter his personal space.
• The administration and Republicans blame Democratic opposition for the war’s unpopularity.