CNN anchor Don Lemon and co-anchor Kaitlan Collins expressed their shock that highly intelligent contestants appearing on “Jeopardy!” didn’t know who Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee who became the first black woman on the Supreme Court, was.
The two co-anchors were discussing with fellow co-anchor Poppy Harlow clues that have elicited criticism on “Jeopardy!” including this week’s clue that featured the murderer of Gabby Petito, Brian Laundrie. They showed a clip from a show earlier in November in which host Ken Jennings prompted, “She’s the first Black woman on the Supreme Court and the first justice to have been a federal public defender.”
After none of the contestants offered an answer, Jennings informed them, “That’s Justice Jackson — Ketanji Brown Jackson.”
At first Collins sympathized with the contestants, contending, “I don’t think that’s that surprising, I will say. A lot of people don’t know who is on the Supreme Court.”
But then Lemon corrected her: “These are — but these are smart people, though. These are — I mean, when you go on ‘JEOPARDY!’ —”
“It’s a good point,” Collins then conceded.
“When you go on ‘JEOPARDY!’ I — look, if you were —” Lemon sputtered.
“She was just confirmed,” Harlow added.
Now Collins was on board: “She’s been in the news so much.”
“She’s been in the news,” Harlow parroted.
“If you’re standing outside of a mall or whatever and people may not know — when they do the man on the street thing,” Lemon began.
“Yes,” Collins echoed.
“But when you’re smart enough to be a contestant on ‘JEOPARDY!’” Lemon insisted.
“You’ve got to know about current events, too, on ‘JEOPARDY!’” Collins declared.
“And history-making ones,” Harlow chimed in.
CNN hosts are PISSED no Jeopardy contestants knew the name of Biden’s “history-making” SCOTUS pick pic.twitter.com/b46SSviZu1
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 18, 2022
Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy slammed Jackson last May for her refusal to condemn the leak of the draft of the Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The opinion ultimately repealed Roe v. Wade, and the leak generated headlines world-wide. McCarthy also ripped Jackson for eschewing to condemn the protests outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices.
McCarthy wrote in National Review, “This ranges from somewhere between cowardly and sinister, much like the failure of the justices to issue a joint statement that echoes the chief justice’s condemnation of the leak and statement of determination to identify the leaker, and that condemns the protests, which violate federal law.”
