Tipsheet

Scott Jennings Shuts Down CNN Panel Over Alleged Iranian Elementary School Strike

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  March 10, 2026 11:00 AM

Scott Jennings delivered an uncomfortable truth on CNN after the network blasted Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over an alleged U.S. strike on an Iranian girls’ elementary school that reportedly killed at least 165 people, most of them children, on the first day of Operation Epic Fury.

Independent investigations by outlets including The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post have suggested the school was struck by a Tomahawk cruise missile, an asset typically associated with the U.S. military, though official investigations have neither confirmed nor denied American responsibility. 

The school, however, sat directly beside an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base, sharing the same compound border.

"I think the most important thing, Hegseth said, and all Americans need to know and understand this, the difference between us and the enemy, we do not target civilians," Jennings said. "When it happens, and it will happen in war, it is tragic and it is not meant to be. The enemy targets civilians. They hide behind civilians. They fund people who set up bases in hospitals so that civilians are in the way. That's not what we do."

"An investigation needs to occur. All the truth needs to be told. And we will give transparency to the American people," he added.

War is brutal, and many Americans are reluctant to confront that reality. Every loss of innocent life is tragic, but it should not obscure a broader objective: ensuring that Iran’s civilian population, and the world beyond it, emerges safer after the leading state sponsor of terrorism is crippled beyond recognition.

Those fixating solely on the reported strike on an Iranian elementary school often appear less interested in the tragedy itself than in using it as a political cudgel against the Trump administration.