Inside The Rollercoaster Relationship Between CNN's Van Jones And Donald Trump

Van Jones is an activist, political commentator at CNN, and affiliate of the Democratic Party. He advocates for green jobs, a subject on which he advised former President Barack Obama, and criminal justice reform, for which he worked hand-in hand-with former President Donald Trump, lobbying for the First Step Act, while representing his organization, #cut50. However, what started as a supportive collaboration quickly morphed into messy friction.

The bipartisan legislation, which passed in 2018, was designed to improve prison conditions, update mandatory minimum guidance, allow more inmates to serve time in home confinement, and reduce mandatory sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, according to Brennan Center for Justice. This was widely considered a success, proving Democrats and Republicans can set their differences aside and achieve a common goal. "I think that you need people with different points of view about politics to move things forward," Jones told Politico. So, why was Trump interested in criminal justice reform? According to another Politico report, it could prove politically advantageous, as Trump hoped gain more support from Black and moderate constituents due to racial disparities in incarceration rates, sentence lengths, and prison conditions. 

However, once all was said and done, Trump felt betrayed. Six years later, in 2024, when interviewed by Patrick Bet-David on "PBD Podcast," Trump shared how he really felt about Jones. "What happens is, Van Jones and all them, they called for a news conference that night the vote was taken," Trump explained. When Jones was at the podium, he thanked everyone involved. Except Trump.

Donald Trump was especially embarrassed, it seems, because he'd asked his wife Melania Trump to watch the conference with him on TV, so that she could "see somebody really say something nice about [her] husband." He then kept on criticizing Van Jones in his interview with Patrick Bet-David, calling Jones a "total sleazebag" and not a "real man." Bet-David noted Jones had thanked Trump on other occasions for his help with the legislation and even showed him video proof but Trump stood by his claims.

At CNN Jones has not held back about Trump either. While he hasn't addressed the conference incident, in a 2024 interview with Anderson Cooper, he called Trump a narcissist and criticized him for not handling getting less attention than Vice President Kamala Harris in August (via The Hill). "This is the year in which he got indicted, convicted, and shot at — and actually hit by a bullet, and none of that to him is as bad as possibly not getting as much attention as Kamala," he told Cooper. "He is more freaked out about that than, you know, being a convicted crook and someone who almost got killed. So that lets you know the level of narcissistic challenge that we have here," he added. Still, despite their differences, Jones told Politico he does not regret working with Trump, considering the reform a "victory" for 200,000 inmates.

While Jones is still one of the leaders of this reform in America, Trump has taken a step back from it since 2020 as a response to the rising crime rates, according to the ACLU, changing his rhetoric to a "law and order" position, supporting re-incarceration, a higher use of the death penalty, and militarization of the police.