The tension between the panelists on CNN may have hit an all-time high.
During a discussion about the effect of Donald Trump's tariffs, colleagues Richard Quest and Scott Jennings got into a spat when the right-leaning anchor claimed his views on the matter are informed by his role as a journalist and the data at hand.
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"It's too early to give a final verdict on the tariffs," Quest said of how the duties have impacted the American economy four months after their implementation. "You may wish to, but at the moment, it can't be said what the long-term effect is going to be."
"I am just a journalist…" Jennings started, prompting Quest to cut him off by firing back, "No, you're not!"
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Fellow anchor Abby Phillip chimed in to ask Quest about the "weird" state of the country's current gross domestic product. "The Wall Street Journal described this as a weird GDP report because there's a lot of stuff inside the numbers. Headline number is good, but what do you see on the inside?" she asked.
"We do not know the full effects of the tariffs yet. We — to put this in perspective, pre-Donald Trump, the average U.S. tariff was three percent," the British journalist replied. "Today, the average U.S. tariff is 17 percent, which is the highest level since Smoot-Hawley in the 1920s and '30s. We cannot know at this point exactly how that's going to play out, which is why the fed held interest rates as they — there are two dissenters, yes, two dissenters, I'll give you that — but they held for the time being simply because, as Jerome Powell says, 'We just don't know.'"
Jennings wasn't having it with Quest's explanation. "I would just like to go — I'd like to build a DeLorean and go back to April when everybody here was predicting [the tariffs were] likely to cause a recession. Investment stops when a recession happens," he said. "They're not talking about a U.S. recession, they're talking about a global recession."
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"What was happening in April, Scott?" Phillip responded.
The group then started talking over each other until Quest managed to squeeze in one final insult: "These trade deals are garbage," he said.
"Garbage?" Jennings asked in shock, to which his on-air rival replied, "Yes."