CNN Cuts To Break After Scott Jennings Silences Panel With Truth About Black Republicans

It’s a tired trope and a clear case of projection, but the Democratic Party’s favorite pastime still seems to be calling Republicans racist.

And that was the backdrop of yet another CNN segment when panelist John Avlon delivered what he apparently thought was a damning indictment of the Republican Party, asserting that there hadn’t been a Black GOP governor since Reconstruction.

Scott Jennings, the network’s overworked voice of reason in debates like this, was once again poised and ready to respond, noting that Virginia Republicans put forth Winsom Earle-Sears as their gubernatorial candidate but were stymied by “a White Democrat who gerrymandered the state.”

The segment received a second wind on social media, where Jennings himself shared the relevant exchange:

DEM: "We haven’t had an African American Republican governor since reconstruction!"

ME: “The Republicans tried to elect one in Virginia.”

DEM: “Okay…” 😳

ME: "Then you got a white Democrat who gerrymandered the state! It’s all crumbling, John!" pic.twitter.com/B2gJHrg3W0

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) April 30, 2026

The Earle-Sears campaign also vocally opposed the Democrats’ redistricting plan, as NBC News reported last year:

“This is what panic looks like,” campaign spokesperson Peyton Vogel said in a statement. “With just 12 days until Election Day, Abigail Spanberger and her Democrat allies have given up on talking to voters about real ideas and solutions.”

Larry Sabato of The Center for Politics at UVA says “re-redistricting,” as he calls it, is a growing national issue.

“Republicans decided to redraw the lines because they want to keep control of the House in 2026. Democrats want to stop them from doing that. So, this whole parade of states doing redistrictings is probably not healthy for democracy, but once it starts, there is a chain reaction and it is affecting at least 10 states – and maybe before it’s over even more than that,” he said.

A Supreme Court decision this week could provide a safeguard against Democrats’ use of redistricting to consolidate power, particularly along racial lines.

As Fox News reported, Barack Obama, who supported Virginia’s redistricting plan, is now being accused of hypocrisy for opposing the high court’s ruling:

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Louisiana’s 2024 mid-decade redistricting that produced a serpentine district represented by Rep. Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge, calling it an “illegal” racial gerrymander, while Obama argued the decision weakened a Voting Rights Act provision prohibiting race-based discrimination.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities — so long as they do it under the guise of ‘partisanship’ rather than explicit ‘racial bias’,” Obama said.

“Unless it’s Virginia. In that case, it’s great to have a 10-1 gerrymander,” Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer replied in a post on X.

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The decision received significant attention across social media:

🚨 BOOM: CLARENCE THOMAS LAYS THE HAMMER, AND LIBERALS MELTED DOWN

He wrote: "I would go FURTHER and hold that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not regulate districting AT ALL."

No more racial gerrymandering! Redraw it all 🇺🇸

Kagan lost it: Section 2 is essentially a… pic.twitter.com/uL9XwRkmvP

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 29, 2026

CNN’s Laura Coates moans that Democrats are fighting “totally illogical conclusions” by SCOTUS after ruling against racial gerrymandering.

“Alito essentially arguing that there's been so much progress that a lot of these rules related to having race based endeavors to equality… pic.twitter.com/dIoCb8LnvV

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) April 29, 2026

And if the CNN segment above has you in the mood to watch some more Scott Jennings smackdowns, here’s a compilation: