Giving viewers his initial thoughts concerning Tuesday’s 2016 GOP presidential debate on the 11:00 p.m. Eastern edition of AC360, CNN political commentator and former Obama administration adviser Van Jones opined that Marco Rubio seemed “rattled” for “the first time” and “lost his cool” as he faced “competition” from fellow Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.
Van Jones
CNN Split; Political Analysts Praise Obama Speech as Foreign Panelists Pan His ‘Self-Congratulation’
By Curtis Houck | December 7, 2015 | 2:38 AM EST Following President Obama’s Sunday night address, the always large post-event panel on CNN had plenty to say, but it was quite the disconnect as many of their political commentators hailed the “straightforward” speech by the President while two of their foreign policy analysts panned the President’s “self-congratulation” and having “his head...in the clouds if he thinks this current strategy is going to succeed.”
By Curtis Houck | October 14, 2015 | 1:26 AM EDT
Opining on how he thought the first 2016 Democratic debate unfolded on Tuesday night, CNN political commentator and former Obama administration official Van Jones compared the “flawless” Hillary Clinton to Beyoncé and touted his belief that activists in the Black Lives Matter movement were the true winners of the debate. Jones declared: “Basically tonight, Hillary Clinton was Beyoncé. She was flawless. I mean, Hillary Clinton did an extraordinary job.”
By Curtis Houck | September 17, 2015 | 1:28 AM EDT
In CNN’s post-debate coverage early Thursday of their 2016 Republican debate, CNN political commentator Michael Smerconish praised Carly Fiorina as possessing “a public speaking gift,” but lamented that she didn’t smile enough during the debate and should “loosen it up a little bit.”
By Curtis Houck | August 7, 2015 | 1:24 AM EDT
Speaking during CNN’s analysis of the first 2016 Republican presidential debate on Thursday night, CNN political commentator and former Obama White House adviser Van Jones panned Jeb Bush’s performance as “terrible” and “like oatmeal getting colder” but praised Ohio Governor John Kasich as “just unreal,” “emotional,” and an “authentic guy who cares.”
By Curtis Houck | July 24, 2015 | 12:19 AM EDT
It took only 12 minutes into their live coverage on Thursday night of the deadly movie theater shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana before CNN Tonight invoked gun control and President Obama with panelists lamenting the lack of “sufficient common sense” on guns, the need for a “more realistic in a interpretation of the Second Amendment” and that the issue will go down in history as President Obama’s “biggest defeat.”
By Jeffrey Meyer | July 6, 2015 | 3:29 PM EDT
On Sunday, the political panel on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper blasted the Clinton campaign for the horrible optics of Mrs. Clinton use of a moving rope line to separate herself from the media during a 4th of July parade in New Hampshire.
By Jeffrey Meyer | June 28, 2015 | 11:03 AM EDT
On Sunday’s State of the Union, CNN’s Van Jones accused those who oppose the Supreme Court's decision to ignore the normal legislative process on gay marriage of pushing “the old state’s rights rhetoric that was anti-civil rights rhetoric of the past than embracing the future.” Jones bemoaned that his “heart was broken” after he heard Mike Huckabee’s comments on the Supreme Court ruling especially because he “put more African-Americans in high position in office as governor than Bill Clinton did.”
CNN’s Marc Lamont Hill on Baltimore: ‘This Is Not a Riot’ But ‘Uprisings’ Against ‘Police Terrorism’
By Curtis Houck | April 28, 2015 | 12:59 AM EDT During CNN’s live coverage on Monday night of the Baltimore riots, CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill urged viewers to view what was taking place as “not a riot” but “uprisings” in response to African-Americans “dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries” due to “police terrorism.” When brought into the discussion by CNN Tonight host Don Lemon, Hill declared that “there shouldn’t be calm tonight” in Baltimore since there’s been “black people...dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries.”
By Bryan Ballas | April 8, 2015 | 9:49 AM EDT
It is not surprising that Rand Paul has a media target on his chest for announcing himself as a Republican presidential candidate. What is unusual is the fact that CNN saw fit to bring in Van Jones, a man with flirtations with communism and 9/11 conspiracy theories (and who briefly President Obama’s "green jobs" czar) to evaluate Paul’s political aspirations.
When Carol Costello asked Jones for his thoughts regarding Paul’s outreach to the black community, he used the opportunity to slander Republicans, “You know, the Republicans have a very tough branding issue when it comes to people of color. Since that they are not in touch. They don't care about some of these communities. I think Rand Paul has been the big exception to that over the past couple of years.”
By Matthew Balan | March 6, 2015 | 11:31 PM EST
On Friday, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 surprisingly spotlighted that the "hands up, don't shoot" narrative and chant forwarded by many left-wing supporters of Michael Brown's family is grounded in falsehoods. Correspondent Sara Sidner cited a recent Justice Department report that underlined that the mantra is "inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence" and that "witnesses have acknowledged their initial accounts were untrue."
By Jeffrey Meyer | December 7, 2014 | 1:54 PM EST
On Sunday morning, ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos discussed Rolling Stone's retracted article surrounding an alleged sexual assault and gang rape at the University of Virginia. While the panelists all agreed that Rolling Stone should take a hit for publishing a false story, the discussion got heated over statistics regarding sexual assaults on college campuses. The segment began with Rich Lowry of National Review accusing Rolling Stone of having “an agenda to portray UVA as this bastion of white male privilege where basically rapists rule the social life. And the damage will never be undone. And I think if there’s any justice in the world, Rolling Stone would have to give up covering music and become the alumni magazine of the University of Virginia.”