Scott Jennings breaks with Trump over January 6 spin, says 'should never happen again'

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Scott Jennings publicly broke with Donald Trump on Tuesday, January 6, pushing back against the White House’s latest effort to recast the January 6 Capitol riot.

While the administration’s newly launched website shifts blame toward law enforcement, Jennings refused to follow that line, calling the attack a “bad day” that “should never happen again.”

The moment unfolded on 'The Source', where host Kaitlan Collins pressed Jennings to respond to claims that Capitol Police “deliberately escalated tensions” and that “patriotic protesters” were unfairly targeted.

Scott Jennings suggests White House narrative casts blame on police

When Collins asked directly whether the White House narrative amounts to blaming the police, Jennings acknowledged the implication but stopped short of endorsing it.

“Yeah, I mean, that’s how you could read it,” said Jennings, a former aide to George W Bush.

At the same time, he took aim at Democrats, accusing them of ritualizing the anniversary. “I also don’t treat it like a national holiday like the Democrats do,” Jennings said. “It was a bad day, but I don’t look forward to memorializing it every year.”

Voters already ‘adjudicated’ January 6 by reelecting Trump

Jennings framed Trump’s position as familiar rather than destabilizing, noting the president has never retreated from his version of events. He then advanced a blunt political argument: the electorate already rendered its verdict.

“The American people frankly adjudicated these questions in the 2024 election, and he’s the sitting president,” Jennings said, suggesting Trump’s return to office neutralized the issue as a political liability, even if the events themselves remain indefensible.

Scott Jennings's current remarks clash with his 2021 outrage  

Jennings's words are in sharp contrast to his reaction five years ago. On January 6, 2021, he published a blistering CNN op-ed accusing Trump of inciting violence.

“This is literally an insurrection,” Jennings wrote at the time, blaming Trump’s “lies and conspiracy theories” and saying he was “ashamed and embarrassed” by Republicans who failed to condemn the violence.

From harsh critic to MAGA-aligned defender

Since then, Jennings has become one of Trump’s most reliable defenders on cable news, even appearing onstage at a Trump rally in Michigan last year. The rapprochement seemed complete when Trump recently promoted Jennings’ new book on Truth Social.

But the White House’s aggressive attempt to pin January 6 on law enforcement appears to have tested the outer boundary of that alliance.