CNN commentator Scott Jennings said Thursday that text messages reportedly sent by Kimberly Guilfoyle to a Trump donor asking for $100,000 to pay off her credit card bill were “extremely unseemly,” and suggested she should be thinking about how to defend her job.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that its reporters reviewed Signal messages purportedly sent from Guilfoyle to Eric Deters, a Trump donor who asked her to elicit favors from the Trump administration.
Guilfoyle, who was previously engaged to Donald Trump Jr. and now serves as U.S. ambassador to Greece, allegedly told Deters in one exchange to stop putting things in writing.
“I really wish you would stop papering all these things. What a nightmare. You’ll literally cost me my ambassadorship. Stop writing. Stop papering all these things. It’s really dangerous. And just call me on signal,” the message read.
A lawyer for Guilfoyle said she disputes the authenticity of the messages.
Jennings weighed in on the report during an appearance on “The Arena With Kasie Hunt.”
“Here’s what I think. It’s extremely unseemly. These text messages. There’s no other way to read it,” Jennings said. “Again, may not be illegal, has to be investigated.”
The controversy followed Guilfoyle to Greece, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked about the situation Thursday while standing just a few feet away from her. Rubio pushed back on the line of questioning.
“If someone gives information to a newspaper or a media outlet, the media outlet reports it, you immediately turn to me and say, ‘I need you respond to our reporting.’ That’s not the way this process works,” Rubio said.
Jennings said he read Rubio’s comments as a signal that the State Department would look into the matter.
“I assume that at the State Department, that is the next thing that will happen when he talks about a process,” Jennings said.
He explained that he took Rubio to mean there would be a process to look into the situation and gather information, with findings to be reported later rather than in response to questions on a tarmac about a newspaper story.
“I think that’s actually perfectly fair,” Jennings said.
Still, the CNN commentator warned that Guilfoyle should be giving serious thought to her next move.
“But if I were in her shoes right now, I would be considering what I wanted to tell the president, the secretary of State, about my future,” Jennings said.
He argued that anyone serving in an appointed role carries a special responsibility.
“Because when you’re in an appointed position like this, and you hold a position of trust with the government, and then you become a distraction or an embarrassment to your principles, that’s a problem,” he said.
Jennings added that Guilfoyle alone knows whether more damaging information could surface.
“And if this story continues to spiral or more bad information were to come out, only she would know that. And she needs to be transparent with her principles about that,” he said.
The report has put a spotlight on the ambassador, with Jennings making clear that while the messages may not be illegal, they warrant an investigation.