Scott Jennings Pushes Back at Carville: ‘You Are Not Going to Sit at this Television Tonight and Call Me a Book Burner’

COOPER: “James, I mean, there’s a difference between having something, a book in a library, and something posted in every classroom from the Bible.”
CARVILLE: “Well, look, this is book burner talking point. All right? These people want to burn books, take them out of libraries. You can‘t substitute reading, writing, arithmetic, which — you know, like I say, the courts will have to flush this out, but there‘s 1,000 founding documents — “
COOPER: “And Kentucky had a similar law, it got struck down.”
CARVILLE: “The problem is, you gotta have kids that can read them.”
COOPER: “Right.”
CARVILLE: “You know, who knows what this court will do, but they’ll leave it — it’ll go right up through the legal system. What I find fascinating is the book burners really want the 10 Commandments. Give me a break.”
COOPER: “Scott, how much of this really is about the quality of public education in Louisiana?”
JENNINGS: “Anderson — “
COOPER: “Sorry, go ahead. Scott.”
JENNINGS: “I worry about the quality of public education everywhere. I worry especially about it coming out of the pandemic when you have an epidemic of kids who have just disappeared, they can‘t find kids. Jim Carville is right, they can’t read, they can’t — “
COOPER: “Right, but is this really about the quality of public education or is it about election year politics and trying to get another so-called religious freedom case in front of the Supreme Court?”
JENNINGS: “But I don‘t — I don‘t necessarily think teaching basic fundamental values of Western civilization is incongruent or in opposition to also having quality education in a school system. And if I might, I do respect the hell out of James Carville, he‘s a legend in our business and for people who do what I do, but you are not going to sit on this television tonight and call me a book burner. I do not believe in burning books. I strongly believe in the First Amendment. I have no interest in restricting any information and I strongly reject the ad hominem attack. We can disagree on this, but you‘re not going to call me a book burner on TV.”
CARVILLE: “Well, the correlation between book burners and people that want the 10 Commandments is high. I can’t tell that you’re one of them, but 80% of the book burners want to — you know, there‘s the high correlation there. And if you want to talk about fundamental American values, try the First Amendment. But that‘s me.”
COOPER: “For the record, I will say I have not heard Scott Jennings talked about burning any books anytime that I’ve talked to him.”
CARVILLE: “Okay. There‘s a lot of book burners that want this — “
COOPER: “I’m just saying, James.”
CARVILLE: “There’s a correlation.”
COOPER: “James Carville, appreciate your time. Scott Jennings as well.”