CNN featured Van Jones in an episode of its docuseries The Bush Years discussing the September 11 terrorist attacks, in spite of the commentator's messy history on the subject.
Jones appeared after the documentary played footage of President George W. Bush's famous bullhorn speech amid the rubble of Ground Zero in New York City.
"I think George W. Bush's presidency starts with 9/11," Jones said. "I think when you saw him out there on that pile of rubble, most Americans said, 'We're going to get behind him, and we're going to hope he leads us out of this.'"
Jones was a curious choice by CNN to comment on Bush and 9/11, given his history.
Jones resigned as the Obama administration's green jobs czar in 2009 when his name was among the signatures of a 9/11 truth statement suggesting the George W. Bush administration had advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks. Jones later claimed he disavowed the conspiracy theory that 9/11 was an inside job and his name was put on the list without his knowledge.
Jones also came under fire at the time for calling Republicans "a—holes" before joining the administration. He once compared Bush to a "crackhead."
Jones has hosted The Van Jones Show twice a month on CNN since January 2018. He remains politically active, recently working with White House adviser Jared Kushner to get criminal justice reform passed and signed into law last year.
Jones also famously described the election of Trump as a "whitelash" to Barack Obama in an emotional moment on election night in 2016.