Jeopardy's Brightest Didn't Know Who Ketanji Jackson Is, and CNN Can't Even

“She’s the first black woman on the Supreme Court and the first justice to have been a federal public defender.”

I’m sure all of our readers — especially our VIP subscribers — knew the correct response to this Jeopardy! question. After the clue was read, none of the three contestants (Thomas “Amy” Schneider, Tyler Rhode, and Maureen O’Neil) buzzed in to respond.

Obviously, the correct response would have been, “Who is Ketanji Brown Jackson?” but they didn’t know.

In April, Jackson became the third African American confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court and the first person confirmed not to know what a “woman” is.

This happened last week while most of us were waiting for Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia to count votes, but the moment went viral when CNN aired the clip, and its anchors were shocked that none of the contestants knew the answer.

“I don’t think that’s surprising, I will say,” co-host Kaitlan Collins insisted.

“But these are smart people, though,” Don Lemon correctly pointed out.

“That’s a good point,” said Collins.

“She was just confirmed, it’s been in the news!” Poppy Harlow interjected.

“If you’re standing outside, I think Kaitlin’s right, if you’re standing outside of a mall or whatever, people may not know, when they do the man on the street thing, yes,” Lemon said. “But when you’re smart enough to be a contestant on Jeopardy…”

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

These aren’t just regular guests on Jeopardy!, either; this was Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, so we’re talking about the most successful contestants on the show. In fact, one of the contestants who didn’t know who Ketanji Brown Jackson was happened to be Thomas “Amy” Schneider. He is literally one of the most successful Jeopardy! contestants ever, holding the second-longest win streak in the show’s history.

Don Lemon is right, for a change. There is no excuse for why any of these contestants didn’t know who Justice Jackson was.

It made me think of the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy! skits.