Scott Jennings wasn't about to let Democratic operative Alencia Johnson get away with wild accusations about voter ID requirements, and the resulting exchange on CNN was a master class in dismantling talking points with simple, direct questions.
Johnson kicked things off by claiming President Trump was "championing a bill that actually would take voting rights away from a lot of black people in this country." But her argument immediately started to crumble when Jennings asked the most obvious question: "What voting rights is he taking away from black voters?"
"The SAVE Act," Johnson, a former advisor to Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign, insisted. "That is actually going to continue to disenfranchise overwhelmingly a lot of people of color."
"How?" Jennings asked, justifiably perplexed.
This is when Johnson tried to deflect, distancing herself from her own position. She claimed "There are so many civil rights organizations that have run the data" and invoked Chuck Schumer's "Jim Crow 2.0" rhetoric.
But Jennings wouldn't let her off the hook. “How? You haven’t said how yet,” he pointed out.
“I am talking about it. It’s the way that you’re putting new poll taxes on us.”
Poll taxes? The SAVE Act does two things: It requires proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID to vote. That’s it. These ideas are popular with everyone but Democrats in Congress and the Democrats’ consultant class.
For our VIPs: The One Issue Missing From the Election Integrity Debate
After multiple attempts to dodge, Johnson finally offered an answer: "It's the way that we're putting new poll taxes on this when you're making people have to prove that they are citizens, that they have to prove with a voter ID."
Jennings couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Poll taxes?" he repeated incredulously.
Johnson doubled down, calling it "kind of an idiom" and arguing that requiring people to prove citizenship makes it "harder for people to vote in this country."
That's when Jennings lowered the boom.
He noted that 76% of black voters support requiring an ID to vote, along with 80% of Hispanic voters and 83% of Americans overall. "Are you saying that black voters are too dumb to know what's good for them?" Jennings asked. "I mean, it sounds pretty condescending."
Democrat strategist Alencia Johnson was spinning wildly on CNN, accusing President Trump of taking away the voting rights of black Americans.
— Overton (@overton_news) February 12, 2026
Scott Jennings didn’t interrupt her. Instead, he waited for her to finish.
When he entered the fray, he asked the one question that… pic.twitter.com/cRWB0JuwsI
The exchange perfectly illustrated how easily leftist claims about voter ID laws collapse under the slightest scrutiny. Johnson came loaded with buzzwords — Jim Crow 2.0, poll taxes, disenfranchisement — but couldn't articulate a single concrete way the SAVE Act would actually prevent eligible voters from casting ballots, and even more particularly, why it would disproportionately affect minority voters.
Related: Even CNN Admits the Truth about Voter ID Laws
We all know what this opposition to basic election integrity reforms is really about. Democrats don’t want basic, commonsense election integrity reforms because they rely on a rigged system where it’s easy to steal elections. They invoke Jim Crow to try to scare Democrats, particularly black Democrats, into thinking that these basic safeguards are racist, but, as Jennings pointed out, the polling shows that not even minorities buy this argument.
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