Kaitlan Collins

Friday

The Spectator

The many legal challenges to Trump’s Executive Orders

It was Groundhog Day in more ways than one this month. Yes, Punxsutawney Phil (accurately) predicted six more weeks of winter, but America also witnessed newly inaugurated President Donald Trump issue a flurry of Executive Orders, only to see many challenged immediately by Democratic attorneys general and paused by judges.During Trump’s first term, Executive Orders like his one restricting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries were challenged by Democrats and liberal activist groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. This time around, many of the challenges and pauses are focusing on Trump’s work, in conjunction with Elon Musk, to slash government spending radically.

Wednesday

Amber Duke

Why did a Washington Post reporter urge the White House to censor Trump?

Former president Donald Trump and Tesla founder and X CEO Elon Musk had a wide-ranging conversation in a record-breaking X Space on Monday night. The pair spoke for about two hours with millions of listeners tuning in; the Space received hundreds of thousands of comments. The opportunity to hear from an unscripted presidential candidate for one of the two major political parties on pretty much every major issue facing our country is a gift to journalists. The amount of access Trump gives to the press in general — even adversarial reporters — is also a gift. Ideas directly from the horse’s mouth; no anonymous sources or investigate legwork required.  But the establishment and corporate media don’t view Trump’s words this way.

Thursday

Cockburn

Why did Nathan Wade agree to this Daily Show interview, also?

Cockburn was left scratching his head last week after former Donald Trump prosecutor Nathan Wade’s disaster sit down with reporter Kaitlan Collins. Not having learned his lesson, Wade decided to double down and appeared on The Daily Show on Wednesday for a racy interview that highlighted the dazzling prudence of the Fulton County courthouse.  Comedian Marlon Wayans, who plays the Daily Show character ’Quon, grilled Wade on his affair with Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, even mimicking several sex positions. After his media team interrupted the CNN interview to dodge a question about his affair, it's almost inexplicable that Wade would place himself in such a raunchy situation — except that he’s clearly enjoying his five minutes of fame.

nathan wade

Thursday

Cockburn

Why did Nathan Wade agree to this CNN interview?

It was the power of love that halted Georgia’s election subversion case against Donald Trump, saving the former president for now from another possible conviction. Now, the emergence of juicy details of the romance — what Cockburn really wants to learn from the case — are being stymied.  Nathan Wade, the former lover of Georgia attorney general Fani Willis and a former prosecutor in the racketeering case, sat down with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday. Collins did her best to draw out the timeline of the affair when the interview was unfortunately interrupted.  What Wade did reveal is that he is still close with his former fling. “We are great friends. We speak regularly. The conversation has changed though,” Wade said.

nathan wade

Tuesday

Aidan McLaughlin

Chris Licht’s troubled first year at CNN

One year into his tenure as the CEO of CNN, Chris Licht is taking a battering. Ratings are dwindling, viewers are outraged and an internal rift is widening. The mountain of problems facing the embattled CEO erupted into public view last week in the wake of the network’s town hall with Donald Trump, an event that sparked outrage inside and outside the CNN newsroom. “It feels very bleak,” one CNN journalist told me. “Staffers are nervous about the future.

chris licht cnn

Thursday

Stephen L. Miller

The circus returns to CNN — and CNN employees are very upset

Employees and contributors woke up Thursday morning very upset to learn that they work at CNN, the network that helped in the great cause of giving candidate Donald Trump billions of dollars in unearned media on his way to steamrolling the 2016 GOP primaries and eventually capturing the presidency.Media-at-large, and by that I mean CNN, then spent the better part of four years atoning for their failed attempt to engineer an election into a coronation for Hillary Clinton. Now, in a morning hangover rage fest over Donald Trump’s appearance at a CNN town hall (which was really more of a corporate promo for new 9 p.m. host Kaitlan Collins than it was anything to do with Trump or Republican voters), an entire new crop of contributors is very upset to learn who signs their paycheck.

kaitlan collins cnn
Cockburn

CNN reels internally from Trump town hall hangover

CNN’s town hall with 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump last night was such a doozy that the network’s own senior media reporter, Oliver Darcy, is copping to a widespread hangover this morning. It isn’t hard to find people disgusted by CNN’s choice to host Trump; Twitter is ablaze with users proclaiming that CNN has “a lot of egg on its face” (Justin Baragona) and “should be ashamed of itself” (AOC). Mediaite’s editor-in-chief, Aidan McLaughlin cited a CNN journalist who told him, “That was sickening. Shame on us.” And in his Reliable Sources newsletter this morning, Darcy reported, “CNN and new network boss Chris Licht are facing a fury of criticism — both internally and externally over the event.

kaitlan collins cnn
Roger Kimball

Donald Trump ran rings around CNN

“Thank you, CNN, for securing Trump's upcoming landslide victory in 2024.”   Perhaps that tweet slightly overstated the case, but only slightly.  All across the political spectrum today, the cry echoes: “What were they thinking?”  AOC and her minions are skirling about CNN’s “irresponsibility” for even hosting a town hall event with Trump in New Hampshire. “CNN should be ashamed of itself,” she tweeted.  On the pro-Trump side, there was also plenty of head-shaking — but this time accompanied by a dollop of glee. The CNN host, Kaitlan Collins, tried manfully to trap Trump, but he was too agile and too brazen to be caught by her little “gotcha” attempts.

donald trump cnn town hall
Ben Domenech

CNN plays with fire again

CNN's decision to host a Donald Trump town hall turned out exactly as you might have expected: a horror show that blew up in their faces. Framed as an opportunity to press the former president with all the issues CNN viewers care about — January 6, E. Jean Carroll, claims of rigged elections — Trump performed in his typical manner: brash, audacious, rude and also hilarious, mocking the network and host Kaitlan Collins openly. Trump's supporters couldn't be happier about it — and at CNN, there could not be more consternation about the decision to push forward with this idea in the first place. When you're calling a broadcast off with twenty minutes left, it's clear who won. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

donald trump cnn town hall

Friday

Cockburn

Cockburn’s Christmas party chronicles

Shaker Heights, Ohio This year, Cockburn’s annual call for Christmas party invitations took him all over the country: DC, New York, even to one to “the longest-running libertarian-hosted Christmas party in Ohio.” What type of libertarians were these? he wondered, as visions of a drug-laced hors d'oeuvre platter and laissez-faire lovemaking danced in his head. “The party has spawned one marriage and three children,” Cockburn’s invitation said, confirming his suspicion (and hope) that all libertarians are also libertines. The Ohio party was advertised as “multi-generational,” and Cockburn’s would-be hosts helpfully added, “We managed to kill no one attending during Covid years.

christmas party

Friday

Grace Curley

What happened to Tough Guy Joe Biden?

If you watched President Joe Biden’s press conference on Thursday afternoon, you wouldn’t know you were looking at the same man who allegedly looked Vladimir Putin in the eyes and told him he had no soul. Hell, based on Biden’s weak performance you might start to question whether or not he actually confronted and defeated a straight-razor-carrying bad dude named Corn Pop outside of a Delaware swimming pool in 1962. The president seemed to want to follow the theme of his last press conference: “Saying the Quiet Part Loud.” Who can forget the recent two-hour presser in which Biden essentially green-lit a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine.

biden

Thursday

Grace Curley

Do you truly believe Joe Biden is in his right mind?

Liberal journalists and politicos are obsessed with the truth. The truth, besides Donald J. Trump and Fox News, is their favorite topic. In October, former Clinton administration secretary of labor Robert Reich called for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help name every person ‘whose greed and cowardice enabled this catastrophe’. In February, New York Times columnist Kevin Roose suggested President Biden appoint a ‘reality czar’. Speaking of Biden, during a campaign stop in 2020, Joe told a crowd in Iowa that ‘we choose truth over facts’. After the speech, MSNBC informed their readers that Trump supporters were pouncing on Biden’s ‘harmless mistake’.

right mind biden

Monday

Cockburn

Saluting the heroes of CNN

They also serve who only stand before the camera and talk nonsense. As the Resistance pick through the rubble of the Trump regime, CNN anchors are counting the cost, and not only in dollars, tens of thousands of which they pocketed for jabbering histrionically around the clock.‘As Election Night 2020 bled into Election Week, the talking heads on CNN became something like members of our families,’ writes Kate Storey at Esquire. Every family has its grandiose narcissists, its liars and sex pests, though not all have a 9/11 truther like Van Jones who can cry on cue.‘I was getting a new coffee every half hour,’ says Jake Tapper, heroically risking simultaneously losing control over both his mouth and his colon.

cnn

Saturday

Anonymous

Confessions of a White House staffer

Oh no, the pipes in Stephen Miller's office are leaking again. We need to fix them and apparently it’s up to me stop the place flooding. I’m pretty sure this is not what I majored in polisci at UVA for, but whatever. Miller’s burst pipes end up dampening everyone who is trying to make immigration reform happen. Word is that Kirstjen Nielsen and Kevin McAleenan both suffered a dousing. Miller’s been told to keep his office in better order. He looks a bit upset. Could be worse, I wanted to tell him, at least his sprayed-on hair didn’t get wet. Another day passes without Hogan Gidley doing a press conference. The hacks are started to mock him openly. The deputy press secretary has been in his role since 2017, and still hasn’t made it to the podium.

white house staffer