BEST OF: Kasie Hunt on Her Career & Trump

Summary

The Al Franken Podcast – "BEST OF: Kasie Hunt on Her Career & Trump"

Date: May 17, 2026
Featured Guest: Kasie Hunt (host of CNN’s "The Arena")
Host: Al Franken

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Episode Overview

This engaging “Best Of” episode showcases Al Franken’s insightful conversation with Kasie Hunt, a seasoned journalist and current host of CNN’s "The Arena." The discussion traverses Kasie’s journey from her early career days at NBC covering the Obama administration and the Affordable Care Act, to reflections on changes in Congress, the divisive Trump era, contemporary challenges in journalism, and her personal resilience facing a brain tumor diagnosis. Hunt and Franken also weigh in on current events, including Trump’s second term, authoritarian shifts, immigration, and the state of the American dream.

Tone: Conversational, witty, candid, and deeply informed.

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Kasie Hunt’s Journalism Journey

(starts ~[02:49])

• Initial Inspiration:

  • The political events of Hunt’s teens (9/11, Iraq War debate) drew her to Washington D.C. for college, feeling a “pull to be part of whatever it was.”
  • "I was a junior when 9/11 happened and I was a senior in 2003…that was all any of us could talk about." (Kasie Hunt, [02:53])

• Starting Out:

  • Attended George Washington University; landed an internship with NBC News’s political unit in 2005, covering "the most boring year" (just gubernatorial races, no congressionals).
  • First job out of college: Associated Press (AP), quickly hooked by “the adrenaline of daily news.” Went to Cambridge University for grad school, but missed being in the U.S. covering the 2008 election.

• Early Career Beats:

  • Covered Congress for "Congress Daily" at the dawn of the Obama era, diving into "the ins and outs of Pension Tunneling," lobbyist calls, and crucially, the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
  • "I had to learn exactly how all of these members of Congress thought about the world." (Kasie Hunt, [06:20])

• Transition to TV:

  • Serendipity and skill led from print to TV; a lively birthday live shot caught an executive’s eye and unlocked a new trajectory.
  • "He said, 'Hey, have you ever thought about being a television correspondent?'…and I said, well, maybe in my pipe dream." (Kasie Hunt, [08:13])

• Professional Ethos:

  • Emphasizes that fundamental reporting skills ("building relationships, figuring out what's going on, and telling people in a very clear and straightforward way") are essential, even as she’s moved into anchor roles.

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The Changing Nature of Congress and Political Journalism

(starts ~[09:50])

• Decay of Bipartisanship & Rise of Tribalism:

  • Congress was once filled with “giants” and more swing-district members, with personal relationships and cross-party trust driving compromises.
  • The current “media ecosystem” prizes purity and punishes deviation, particularly on the right; Trump and online mobs now set the incentive structure.
  • "Everything has become, like, more pure, right? Like, neither party is willing to accept…people who are not completely in line with everything that the party stands for." (Kasie Hunt, [12:29])
  • Memorable moment: Paul Ryan on attacks from Breitbart: “That’s life. Death, taxes, and attacks from Breitbart.” (Kasie Hunt quoting, [13:20])

• Trump as Product and Catalyst:

  • Questioned whether Trump created the system or was created by it—conceded it was “very symbiotic.” Trump now holds immediate power to “punish anyone who steps out of line.”
  • The pressure for ideological homogeneity is exacerbated by social and right-wing media.

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January 6th, Journalism Under Fire

(starts ~[16:45])

• Personal Impact:

  • Deep “affection” for the Capitol as a place and symbol; January 6th was a profound personal and professional rupture.
  • "I always had a very kind of idealistic view of what I wanted to do…helping our democracy work better by figuring out the right information so that people could make up their own minds." (Kasie Hunt, [17:29])
  • Hunt was not in direct physical danger but witnessed the violence and uncertainty firsthand.
  • Chilling anecdote: “The danger’s on the outside…to have a situation where it was fellow Americans who were attacking the building…” (Kasie Hunt, [17:38])
  • A premonition: "There is something that doesn’t feel right today. Like, I am. This could go wrong." (Kasie Hunt, [19:14])

• Aftermath and Trauma:

  • When Trump pardoned January 6th rioters on his first day back, Hunt said, "I was stunned, I think, but also not surprised and also had to just go in there and say, this is what happened. You know, if…whenever I let myself get surprised by Trump, it’s like I’m always wrong." (Kasie Hunt, [21:23])

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Confronting Disinformation & Eroding Trust

(starts ~[22:19])

• Confronting Trump’s Lies on Air:

  • Recounted on-air pushback when Trump lied about the Iraq War:
    • “No, I said that’s not true. It’s straight not true. I didn’t qualify it.” (Kasie Hunt, [22:50])

• The Crisis of Truth:

  • Trump's “brazen nature” in flipping reality has fundamentally challenged both journalists and citizens.
  • Franken: “They [Fox] got sued for…$787 million…because they put out this fiction that the voting machines were fraudulent.” ([24:02])
  • Hunt: "He’s undermining trust in institutions that actually are required to be held accountable." (Kasie Hunt, [24:26])
  • Rise of influencer/YouTube culture that’s unaccountable, and a segment of the population that believes only Trump.

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Life as a Morning Show Anchor

(starts ~[25:04])

• Demanding Schedule:

  • Hosting "Way Too Early" on NBC (and later CNN) required 3-4 AM wake-ups; pandemic broadcasting from home made it easier.
  • Juggling research, live TV performance, and a family—"not an easy lifestyle, it’s not for the faint of heart." (Kasie Hunt, [25:47])

• What Makes Good TV:

  • The most resonant moments are often “very basic, straightforward questions”—clarity and honesty over complexity.
  • “Performance really matters and so does how you look…if I don’t get enough sleep, forget it.” (Kasie Hunt, [27:05])

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Personal Health Challenge: Brain Tumor & New Perspective

(starts ~[30:11])

• NBC to CNN+—Then Diagnosis:
  • Just as she was set to helm a CNN+ morning show, Hunt was diagnosed with a (benign) brain tumor.
  • Her trusted surgeon, Dr. Dan Yosher, gave her both clarity and confidence—"The hardest part…is gonna be that it is so small…But that is my problem, not yours." (Kasie Hunt recounting, [31:30])
  • The surgery and recovery were daunting; Hunt describes confronting mortality, fearing loss of self, and being profoundly changed by surviving—"I’m myself. I’m still the same person that I was when I went under." (Kasie Hunt, [33:24])
  • “It’s really changed how I look at the world.” (Kasie Hunt, [33:42])

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Trump’s Second Term: Corruption, Exhaustion, and Authoritarian Shift

(starts ~[33:57])

• Corruption Escalates:

  • Franken: “In the first term, you know, like Saudis would buy rooms…But now it’s things like the Meme coin…” ([34:15])
  • Hunt: “The biggest difference is how much less people seem to care about it…in the first Trump administration, you certainly saw some of that…now, none of it breaks through. And if nothing matters, how does anything matter?” (Kasie Hunt, [35:26])

• Authoritarian Tactics:

  • Discussion of masked, unmarked ICE agents detaining people without identifying themselves.
  • Hunt: “I honestly never thought I would see that in America. Honestly.” (Kasie Hunt, [37:24])
  • Raises concern if voters ultimately care or notice, with overall civic “exhaustion” and declining engagement.

• Democratic Strategy & Biden’s Legacy:

  • Notes the Democrats’ inability to “disabuse Joe Biden” of notion he was the only one who could beat Trump: “He was probably the person least likely in the worst position to be able to do it.” (Kasie Hunt, [39:25])

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The American Dream—A Generational Shift

(starts ~[41:46])

• Pessimism and Stagnation:
  • “People don’t think that the American dream is possible anymore. Right. Most people don’t feel like their kids are going to be better off than they were…” (Kasie Hunt, [41:53])
  • Emphasizes that even relatively affluent families feel this squeeze; sees it as a deep, fundamental social shift that drives politics and discontent.

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Policy & Politics: The Big Beautiful Bill, Congress, and Immigration

ACA, Medicaid, Tariffs, and More
(starts ~[44:00])

• On the “Big Beautiful Bill”:

  • Franken: Bill “designed to give tax breaks to those at the top and screw those at the bottom by taking away Medicaid and ACA and SNAP.”
  • Hunt: “This is not the kind of bill…the Republican Party that I first started covering…would pass. Josh Hawley out of Missouri [saying] that Medicaid cuts are too much for him. Peter Orszag, deficit hawk, and Josh Hawley, Medicaid defender. Like, what world are we living in?” (Kasie Hunt, [44:42])

• Will it Pass?:

  • “I do think it’s going to pass, yeah. I don’t think they have any choice…if they allow [tax cuts] to expire, then they will be writing their own political death notes." (Kasie Hunt, [45:59])

• Immigration Policy and Messy Reality:

  • Trump’s shifting stance—sometimes expressing tolerance for undocumented workers vital to communities, rapidly backtracking under pressure.
  • Hunt: “Whoever he has talked to most recently…is perhaps what you’re gonna hear from him at that point.” (Kasie Hunt, [50:38])
  • Notes how rounding up non-criminal, longstanding community members is not what was promised, but easier to fill quotas.

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Tariffs and Economic Impact

(starts ~[54:17])

• Real-Life Price Hikes:
  • Franken: “My wife had a pair of pants … it went from $27 to $37.”
  • Hunt: Noted even secondhand goods now face tariffs and those costs are becoming “very obvious very quickly.”
  • Presidential intervention: “When [Trump] found out…Amazon was going to start posting the tariff increase…he called Bezos on the phone and then it went away.” (Kasie Hunt, [55:25])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Whenever I let myself get surprised by Trump, it’s like I’m always wrong."
  – Kasie Hunt ([21:23])

• "He’s undermining trust in institutions that actually are required to be held accountable when that happens."
  – Kasie Hunt ([24:26])

• "If nothing matters, how does anything matter?"
  – Kasie Hunt ([36:52])

• “[January 6] changed how I look at the world.”
  – Kasie Hunt ([33:57])

• "Honestly, I never thought I would see that in America."
  – Kasie Hunt, on masked, unmarked ICE raids ([37:24])

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Closing Moments

(starts ~[55:33])

• Warm sign-off; Hunt expresses desire to interview Franken about his own journey, but jokes about her busy life as a mother of two young children.
• Endearing coda: Her eldest is named Mars, "like the planet," a line she now repeats for clarity.

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For Listeners:
This episode offers a thoughtful lens on how political journalism and American political life have changed, built around Hunt’s lived experiences and deep industry insight. It’s an essential listen for anyone keen to understand not just the headlines, but how the ground has shifted under Washington—and the Americans watching at home.

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Quick Reference – Key Sections & Timestamps

| Theme/Segment | Timestamp (MM:SS) | |------------------------------------------|------------------------| | Kasie’s origin story & GWU years | 02:49–06:39 | | Congress in the Obama era | 05:44–09:50 | | Transition from print to TV | 07:19–09:50 | | Congress’s tribal shift & media effects | 09:55–15:03 | | January 6 and its effects | 16:45–22:19 | | Confronting Trump’s lies & disinfo | 22:19–25:04 | | Morning anchor lifestyle | 25:04–28:43 | | Brain tumor diagnosis & aftermath | 30:11–33:57 | | Trump’s second term (corruption, apathy) | 33:57–41:46 | | State of the American Dream | 41:46–44:00 | | “Big Beautiful Bill” & Congressional split | 44:00–46:53 | | Immigration & community realities | 49:35–54:17 | | Tariffs and living costs | 54:17–55:33 | | Closing/family and sign-off | 55:33–end |

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

[Al Franken]

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[Casey Hunt]

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[Podcast Host]

Hey everybody, we got a great one today, you know, for a change. And that's because this one is a best of. Now I'm taking a little break from the podcast. I've been doing the show for seven years now and I deserve a break. So I'd like to revisit my conversation with Casey Hunt from June of last year. Casey is the host of CNN's the Arena, of course, and I hope she continues to be after the Trump administration approves the Paramount Warner Brothers merger. Trump, of course, wanted Paramount to win the bidding war for Warner Brothers over Netflix because Netflix had no interest in cnn, but Paramount did. And will they do its magic on CNN like they did after they took over cbs? Well, we will see. But for now, Casey tells us about her career in journalism from her early days at NBC covering the Obama administration and the passage of the Affordable Care act to. Well, now we taped this just before the big beautiful bill passed. Not much has happened since then. But if you're wondering what is going on, check out Casey Hunt on CNN's the arena, weekdays at 4pm Eastern and available as a podcast later the same day. In the meantime, enjoy this one. It is a great one, you know, or a change. How did you get started? How did that happen?

[Casey Hunt]

Oh, how did I get started? Well, so I was in high school when they were trying to decide whether to invade Iraq. I was a junior when 911 happened and I was a senior in 2003. You know, that was all any of us could talk about. And I knew I wanted to go to Washington for college Because I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to be part of whatever it was. And because all that was going on, I thought maybe I would try to be a foreign correspondent or a war correspondent at that time. And I started basically looking for internships. I was one of those people who probably spent more time working than actually attending college in the years that I was in college.

[Podcast Host]

Where were you at college?

[Casey Hunt]

I went to George Washington University. So you're in D.C. so I'm in D.C. you know. You know the type. Right. But I got an internship with NBC News actually in their political unit in 2005.

[Podcast Host]

That was eventually how you worked yourself to NBC and msnbc, sort of kinda. What unit were you in? Were you in a unit?

[Casey Hunt]

So I worked for the political unit, which was basically in charge of covering campaigns and elections. Right. But it was 2005, which was like the most boring year to be covering elections. It's right after presidential. The only elections that were going on were governor's races in Virginia and New Jersey. But I still loved it from there. I did more internships and eventually I got a job right out of college at the ap. And I just got hooked on the sort of adrenaline of daily news and really being in the thick of everything. And I did take a little bit of a break. I went to graduate school in the uk, but really that taught me in the uk. Yeah, I went to Cambridge for my graduate degree.

[Podcast Host]

Very good.

[Casey Hunt]

And it was wonderful. I had the time of my life. I had all the fun I didn't have in college because I was busy working, I had at Cambridge. But it also was the year of the 2008 election, and I realized that I just felt totally left out all the time. Even though I was having a blast, I wanted to come back and do it. And so when I came back to the States, I went back to the AP and I got assigned to cover, eventually the presidential campaign in 2012. So at that point, I don't know, you catch the bug of doing that and you realize that, you know, so it was all I wanted to do after that, before I went back to the AP to cover the presidential. I started on the Hill, I came back from grad school, I got a job at Congress Daily, which is this. You know, you probably knew it. It was there when you were in office. It started out as a faxed newsletter, you know, in the afternoon, and it covered the ins and outs. Yes. Like I've learned, I could give you the ins and outs of Pension Tunneling or at least I used to be able to. Like, I was on the phone with lobbyists for health care companies and labor, and then I was covering healthcare. Right. And it just so happened that Obama had just been elected and he wanted to pass Obamacare, which also was an incredible political education.

[Podcast Host]

So he was elected in an eight, obviously.

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah. And that's the summer I come home from graduate school. So I miss the campaign. Still regret that to this day that I was not here to cover that

[Podcast Host]

campaign when you had a great year in school, but I had a great

[Casey Hunt]

year in the uk. Yeah. And so I went up to the Hill and then Obama gets torn in, in January. This is the first. And you know, as. As, you know, it's become harder and harder. You get basically one big shot. And that was Obama's big shot legislatively. And it was such an amazing education because I was covering the House, actually. And this is one of those things. Right. Like, I was always, I was junior at the beginning of my career, I was very junior. And they would always assign the more junior person to cover the House and not the Senate because the assumption was, well, it would all really get done in the Senate. But it turned out that the politics in the House were way better and harder. You know, passing it through the House, like what Nancy Pelosi did to get it through the House was a fascinating political story. And I had to learn exactly how all of these members of Congress thought about the world.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, we passed it in the Senate and then they had to pass it in the House, supposedly had to pass the exact same bill. We thought.

[Casey Hunt]

Yes. That, I mean, is in theory how it's, you know, supposed to. Supposed to work. But as you know, it sometimes gets.

[Podcast Host]

But they didn't. And we fixed it in reconciliation.

[Casey Hunt]

Exactly, exactly. But it was really tough for Pelosi to get the votes and they had to make adjustments for. In particular, there were. When I first started out, and I'm sure this was true for you. I mean, there was so much more crossover. Right. There were pro life Democrats, Democrats who supported or opposed abortion rights rather. And those were the people she had to make happy with that bill in the end.

[Podcast Host]

And you're at NBC now, right?

[Casey Hunt]

Well, so I covered the presidential campaign and I started doing tv because when you cover a campaign, that's something that they'll ask you to do. I have print reporters to be on my show now all the time. And honestly, I feel like I got kind of a lucky break. I don't know how it was that you feel like you really broke through in your career. I'd be fascinated to hear that story. But this was one of those things where. And I still kind of. I tend to think about luck. Like, it is true that you make your own luck, but you also need that random thing that comes your way. And so, for me, I was working really hard at getting better on tv, but I figured, you know, I was gonna be a print reporter for basically my career. But I went and I did a live shot on my birthday of that election year. And I think I must have, you know, done the thing that will make a TV executive sit up and be like, oh, they might have the thing. And, you know, I was a wire reporter. I was very buttoned up. I was very careful about what I said all the time. But on this particular day, the anchor, who I'd gotten to know a little bit, you know, wished me a happy birthday, and I lit up and we had a great little back and forth, and I thought nothing of it until the assistant for the bureau chief at NBC showed up outside the camera box where I was sitting and said, hey, the bureau chief wants to see you. So I go down to the bureau chief's office, and I sit down. I'm like, oh, I wonder what this is about. And he said, hey, have you ever thought about being a television correspondent? And I was like, well, maybe in my pipe dream over here. That sounds great. He said, well, I think that's what you should try to do. I said, wow, okay, tell me how. And it took a few months, but this particular person ended up being an executive of some clout and followed my career and hired me. Actually, we only overlapped at NBC for a handful of months because he was working at the time for Steve Capus, who was only the president of NBC for a few months after I started. And they just changed the leadership, you know, And I had no idea what I was getting myself into, right? I had no idea the scope of what I did not know about television going in. And I made so many mistakes in that first year. And it would have been so easy for it to have been a total and complete disaster and for me to have washed out of NBC and, you know, gone back somewhere else. But.

[Podcast Host]

But they liked you.

[Casey Hunt]

But it didn't.

[Podcast Host]

They liked you.

[Casey Hunt]

I was a reporter. They saw something there that I knew how to do. I knew how to be a reporter. And when you can do that, that core set of skills, right? Like building relationships, figuring out what's going on, and telling people in a very clear and straightforward way. What's happening and why it matters, right? Like, those are the core. I have used those skills in every job I've ever had.

[Podcast Host]

When you host a show like you do now, are you. You're less of a reporter and you're dealing with reporters more, Is that correct or not?

[Casey Hunt]

I mean, yes, there's definitely more of that because I'm not, you know, I'm not out there pounding the pavement, right. I'm not running around. But I think that it's a huge mistake to be an anchor who's not also a reporter. And it's actually one of the things I think CNN actually values really highly, that when I sit, like, on big event nights and I'm next to the other anchors, like Jake Tapper's hosting and I'm one of the, you know, or Dan Abash is hosting, and I'm one of the people on the panel, that entire panel is sitting, texting senators, members of Congress, other sources the entire night. I feel like I'm having conversations all the time in my life where I bring that reporting back to the show, and hopefully it shows up in the questions that I ask, the way that I set stuff up for panels and things like that. But you're right, it is a different role, for sure. It's kind of an evolution, I guess, is how I think about it.

[Podcast Host]

How has Congress changed since your early years?

[Casey Hunt]

How hasn't it changed? I mean, it's changed totally, right when I went up there in the beginning. So this is, again, 2008, right. Obama has just been elected. I did a short stint in 2006, my first job at the AP, and it was before the 2008 campaign. And it was full of all the people that were gonna run, right? It was John McCain, and on both sides, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards.

[Podcast Host]

John Edwards, yep.

[Casey Hunt]

The Hill was crawling with ambitious people, people who were about to run. And it was like a fascinating time to be up there. And then the others, you know, there were all these giants, right? I mean, John Warner was in the Senate as well, Ted Kennedy. It was driven as much by the personal relationships that people had with each other and the trust that could be built in that way. There were a lot of people who were of one party inside a state that was at the presidential level, voted for another party. Right. There were a lot more swing districts. There were senators, you know, there were Democratic senators from red states and Republican senators from blue states. And what has happened in the intervening years, and I'm almost old enough to say 20 years not quite. But in the intervening decade and a half since I've been doing it, the media environment has changed completely, which has completely blown up the incentive structure on the Hill. And this, I guess, is part of the incentive structure story. But everything has become, like, more pure, right? Like, neither party is willing to accept or embrace people who are not completely in line with everything that the party stands for. And this is less true on the left, although it's becoming more true. But on the right, you know, a media ecosystem has developed that demands that the people who are part of it, you know, toe a certain line act a certain way, and they're punished for stepping out of line almost immediately.

[Podcast Host]

And is that more extreme now because of Trump? Because Trump can punish anyone who steps out of line.

[Casey Hunt]

I think that Trump is. It's hard to say whether Trump is a product of this system or the driver of it. It's very symbiotic. And, yes, the way that Trump and what he says and what he wants is carried through that ecosystem means that he basically is just setting the terms, right? I mean, I remember I interviewed Paul Ryan when I launched my first show, and I guess this would have been 2013 or so, and I asked him about, how is your life when you're constantly attacked by Breitbart, right, Because that's what it was at the time. And he said, that's life, death, taxes, and attacks from Breitbart. That's like the story of my life. And he was very flip about it, but he was saying something bigger. And the way that it changed the incentive structure is that used to be that a lot of this was worked out as, you know, you would build personal relationships, you would have meetings, there would be give, there would be take, and then something would come of it. There might be a vote. And the way that that information traveled allowed enough space for things to get over the finish line, for things to get passed or written into law with this, like, instantaneous, you know, mob mentality that these other types of outlets could generate, right, Where a right wing online or left wing online, you know, mob group of people who were upset about it could find out about something before it had any chance of getting anywhere and then create a dynamic that was politically impossible for the people trying to execute on it. Like, if you think about the government shutdowns that we went through with the Tea Party, right, that group of people were relying on and using this ecosystem to put pressure on their colleagues to make things politically impossible. And, yeah, you see it play out with Trump constantly.

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[Podcast Host]

So you're still at SMBC on January 6th?

[Casey Hunt]

I was, yes.

[Podcast Host]

And I read a piece that you wrote about January 6th. It had a real effect on you.

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah, it did. And you know, I spent a lot of my career covering the Capitol. It's really a place that I have deep affection for. And it sort of became like a home away from home for me, you know, I mean, as, I mean the people who you buy your lunch from at the cafeteria, I mean, it's been a couple of years since I've, I've been up there and I've been doing it, so I don't know, but for most of the time I was up there, it was the same person. You know, I'd go Off cover presidential campaign. I'd come back, you know, I'd say hello again to the same people, and they would recognize me, you know, as, you know, I mean, it's. It's its own world. And that's before you even get to everything that it represents about, you know, our democracy, how things are supposed to work, what's supposed to be important. I always had a very kind of idealistic view of what I wanted to do, why I was here. You know, I wanted to play a part in the process. I wanted to play a part in helping our democracy work better by figuring out the right information so that people could make up their own minds about who to vote for and why. Right. And so when that happened, it felt, you know, obviously the political ramifications are clear. Nobody needs to be told, like what happened that day. Well, there are a lot of people who want to say a certain thing happened when I saw with my own eyes what actually happened. But from a personal perspective, I think covering Washington, especially after 9 11, which was formative for me, as I said at the beginning, you always think, well, this could be a dangerous job. There are plenty of people who want to do bad things, plenty of suspicious packages and shelter in place, orders and concerns about terrorism. And. But you always think that the danger's on the outside. And so to have a situation where it was fellow Americans who were attacking the building. And I just remember those interminable hours waiting for the president to do something, to call them off.

[Podcast Host]

Were you ever in danger?

[Casey Hunt]

So I had colleagues who were in very real danger. I'm not sure I know how much danger I was in or that I wasn't, but I was never in a situation where I had to be evacuated from something that felt like, very scary. I was in the Russell office building. I had a colleague when this first started, a colleague and I looked at each other and we thought, well, typically the safest place to be when something hits the fan is on the floor of one of the chambers right in the Capitol building. So we looked at each other and we thought, well, maybe we should try to go to the Capitol. We went downstairs, took the elevator down to the tunnel, and they'd already chained the door shut. We're like, well, you know, that's off limits now. We never imagined that actually the real danger was in the building itself. I mean, I have a text with my husband from that morning, and I. And I sort of. I just felt there was something going in because I'm. I'm not. I don't tend to worry too much about, again, all these things, they're sort of. It's just sort of in the air. But that morning, I went in and I sent a note to my husband. I said to him, there is something that doesn't feel right today. Like, I am. This could go wrong. And he wrote back and he said, once you get into that building, you'll be fine. You know, you'll be safe. Right. Well, we always assumed, and it was totally wrong. So, I mean, I watched from the windows of the Russell Rotunda, which is up on the third floor of the Senate Office Building. You can see right across the street across Constitution Avenue to the east front of the Capitol, and you could see the mob climbing up the, you know, the walls. Right.

[Podcast Host]

Like, breaking through the windows.

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah. And so then we were there. You know, they. To my knowledge, there were. They never came to Russell. At one point, they were in the Cannon Tunnel. I think I had a colleague who was, you know, locked down over there. But we were broadcasting all afternoon from Russell, and I was never any. In any immediate physical danger. But obviously, it's very difficult to know that. Right. Because you're seeing what's happening. You're seeing on your, you know, we're watching on TV what our colleagues are bringing in with the video.

[Podcast Host]

How did you feel Trump's first day in office where he pardoned all the January 6th criminals?

[Casey Hunt]

That's a very difficult question.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, these are guys who, some of them, who beat cops and sprayed them with bear spray, and we lost

[Casey Hunt]

some cops over time, and that's where my head went. I gotten to know one of those cops in particular, Aquilina Gunnell, who's been on my show a few times. They were the guys that were actually in danger that day. I think that to a certain extent, there's a little bit of a part. Like there's a part of you that goes a little bit numb, and it just sort of. If you really try to sit back and process it on an emotional level, it becomes a little bit more difficult to, you know, cover it as a journalist. So I was. I was stunned, I think, but also not surprised and also had to just go in there and say, this is what happened. You know, if. Whenever I let myself get surprised by Trump, it's like I'm always wrong. Right. You think it's not going to happen, and then it does whatever it is.

[Podcast Host]

The other day, Trump said something about he was going to the helicopter and somehow Iraq came up. And he said that he'd always been against the war. In Iraq and that he knew that they didn't have weapons of mass destruction. And you were in your anchor seat and it went to you, and you kind of went, well, that's not exactly true.

[Casey Hunt]

No, I said that's not true. It's straight not true. I didn't qualify it.

[Podcast Host]

No, you didn't.

[Casey Hunt]

No.

[Podcast Host]

And he lies a lot, doesn't he?

[Casey Hunt]

I mean, he'll say something. And I think that this is one of the things that's been the most difficult for me in the Trump era is just sort of the brazen nature of stating that the reality is this way. And he does this with January 6th as well, when it is very clear that it takes little to no effort to show that the thing that he is saying is true or the thing that he is saying happened, happened, did not happen, or is not true. And this is one of the things that, you know, I think is really probably the most fundamental challenge for certainly what I do every day. But also, I think for all of us as citizens and, you know, people in the world, the question of who do you trust and why, and the fact that there are so many people out there and the way in which criticism of information from whether it's mainstream media sources, obviously he loves to criticize,

[Podcast Host]

you know, media outlets which send information that's not true. Like Fox, like, when. I mean, like. I mean, they got sued for what they had to settle for $787 million or something because they put out this fiction that the voting machines were fraudulent.

[Casey Hunt]

The bottom line is he's undermining trust in institutions that actually are required to be held accountable when that happens. Right. That's the thing. Right. They still were able to be held accountable in a court of law. And that's not true for the vast ecosystem of influencers and YouTubers. And the way that you build trust with an audience has fundamentally changed. Right. And Trump has taken advantage of that, and he has made it so that there is an audience that only trusts him. So when he says something is not true and any person could Google and find out that it's not true, there are still people that believe him because they believe that everything else is lying to them somehow. Right, Right.

[Podcast Host]

Because of where they get their information and their buy in. Let me change to something. I was curious always about the Way Too Early Show. Yeah, I was a fan of yours on that.

[Casey Hunt]

Oh, thank you.

[Podcast Host]

I often wondered just what your hours were and what was the call. The show started at 5am, right?

[Casey Hunt]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

When did you have to get there? And how much time did you have to prepare? Were you preparing before you woke up or before you went to sleep or how did that work?

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah, well, it is not an easy lifestyle, I will say. It's not for the faint of heart. I. It's funny, when I was doing way too early at NBC, so the 5am hour on MSNBC before morning Jo, it was the pandemic. So my studio was in my basement. So it actually made my life a lot easier because I could just, I could get out of bed at 4 o', clock, walk downstairs, do my own makeup when I started doing it here at cnn, because for the last, you know, last year, before I started doing the arena, I was hosting from 5am to 7am I'd have to get up at 3. And that was considerably more difficult than getting up at four. I have to say, getting up at four, it's like you feel like, oh, I went to bed at 10, I've gotten six hours. It's great. I have trouble with let. With five hours of sleep. So I was always going to bed extremely early. I have little kids, I have little kids. So in some ways it's easier because like I put them to bed and then I would go to bed, I put them down by 7, I'd be in bed at 7:30. But as for working, I mean, I think, you know, especially when you're an anchor as opposed to being a reporter, order. You know, your job is kind of twofold, right? Obviously you want to be the person who knows you. You always have to be prepared. You have to know what the story is. Of course, you have to do your research, but you're also there to kind of figure out what it is that everyday people want to know. So for me, there's always like a balance between, like, I want to make sure I want to have a guest, like I am asking the question that everybody at home wants to ask. And I found that sometimes the newsiest moments I've had, the stuff that's gone the most viral or that's been kind of the best TV have been to very basic, straightforward questions, right? That you don't need a ton of research or prep to know to ask, right? You just have to be someone who pays attention. So you know my metric. And in the early morning, you know, you can't know everything. So I had a very like, you know, I had a very good routine for absorbing information in the morning. YouTube TV has made that easier because like ABC does an early morning broadcast overnight that I would always watch in the makeup chair on my iPad because I could do it on YouTube, TV, right? Like I'd read, you know, obviously all the newspaper websites, they don't all refresh until 4 in the morning. So you can't even really prepare at three in the morning to know like what the other places are going to have until they actually put it out at 4. So I had like a routine like a diet for news. But mostly you just have to trust that you know your producers are going to have your back and go with that. Because I also think in TV in particular, performance really matters and so does how you look. And you have to kind of focus on that when you only have, right? You gotta, you gotta have enough. If you don't get. If I don't get enough sleep, forget it. I'm not like you're not gonna want to hang out with me at 5am, right? Like I need to be a person that you want to see that seems awake, right? Which means that I gotta get enough rest, right? I gotta drink coffee at the right time and I gotta trust the people around me to like make sure I have the shit I need basically.

[Thomas and Franken]

This is Al's daughter, Thomas and Franken. And I'm here to tell you that you can stop overpaying for wireless and sign up for Mint Mobile. I'm sick of handing money to our wireless carrier every single month with autopay, no questions asked fees I didn't sign up for. Allegedly free perks that end up costing money it seems impossible to keep up with. Mint Mobile exists purely to fix this problem. They offer premium wireless plans starting at just 15 bucks a month with high speed data, unlimited talk and text. All running on the nation's largest 5G network. It's not a lesser service. It's the same quality without the big carrier markup. And switching is shockingly easy. Bring your own phone, keep your number. Activate with ESIM in minutes. No long term contracts, no hassle, just immediate savings. If I needed a new plan, I would absolutely go with Mint Mobile. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Ditch overpriced wireless and get three months of premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. Shop [e-mail] Franken that's mintmobile.com Franklin Franken upfront payment of $45 for three month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first three months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. C Mint Mobile for details

[Podcast Host]

so you go over to CNN plus, such as

[Casey Hunt]

it is, as it was, yeah.

[Podcast Host]

As it was. You're about to do a morning show there and you get a brain tumor. And I'll cut very quickly to the chase. It's benign and it's the size of a pea.

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah, if that.

[Podcast Host]

And you have a great, very great surgeon and you decide who convinced you to get the surgery.

[Casey Hunt]

Probably my surgeon. Although he would obviously not say that because they're very careful if you don't have to have surgery to not push you to do it. They're careful to give you all your options and tell you all the risks.

[Podcast Host]

Did Sanjay Gupta weigh in? Did he?

[Casey Hunt]

He did, actually. Yeah. We're very, very lucky. I have a family friend who happened. I grew up across the street from his kids in these little 50s, you know, three bedroom, split level houses in PA suburbs. He now happens to run Penn Medicine. It's a great guy to be able to call in a crisis. And he put me in touch with his head of neurosurgery. His name is Dr. Dan Yoscher. The neurosurgeons are the jocks of the medical world, right? Like, they're like the badasses. The ones who are like, you know, taking these, like, huge risks. They, like, they run on adrenaline. It's. It's like they're a crazy bunch of people. I have so much respect for them, but. And Dr. Yoshi is just like the best. He looks at my scans, takes it to his tumor board. He calls me, he says, so I'm pretty sure I know what this is. And keep in mind, I have talked to so many doctors who are like, I have no idea what this is. He says, I think I know what this is. I think it's a hemangioblastoma. I think it's benign. I think if you take it out, your symptoms are gonna go away. I think the hardest part of the surgery is gonna be that it is so small, it's gonna be very difficult to find it. But that is my problem, not yours. And I said, great, you can be my brain surgeon.

[Podcast Host]

And it didn't. And it took it out.

[Casey Hunt]

And so he went in. It was like a four hour plus surgery, and he took it out. The recovery was not easy, I have to say, but it didn't feel that way at the time. Like it. Brain surgery is a very strange thing. And, you know, I'm very like, I've learned a lot. There are very few survivors of brain tumors like the one that I had inside, inside the crate, like a craniotomy. If you are doing a Craniotomy to take tumor out. And certainly if you have glioblastoma, like the survival, it's. I sort of learned either you're going to be fine or you probably are unlikely to be alive in a two year period. Right. So that was kind of how this, this felt to me, right. When I didn't know what this was. It was okay. Do I, am I facing a difficult surgery and recovery, but I'll be, I'm going to be okay. Or like I had a two year old son at the time, like, do I have no hope of ever, you know, seeing him, you know, I don't know, come home from kindergarten, let alone graduate from college. Right. So I spent this time kind of confronting the idea of like, my, like life continuing on without me in this very real way. Because when I was going into the surgery, I actually had full faith and confidence in Dr. Yoscher and I was convinced he was right and that I did not have brain cancer. But also the possibility was there.

[Podcast Host]

And you're afraid.

[Casey Hunt]

I had a fear of waking up and not being myself. If you ask my mom what she remembers, she'll say, oh, the first thing you said when you woke up and I was sitting there with you was that, oh, Mom, I'm myself. I'm still the same person that I was when I went under. Right. That was my big. You just don't know. It's impossible to know.

[Podcast Host]

But you were.

[Casey Hunt]

But I was. But I was. And so I also feel, I don't know, it's really changed my life. Honestly. I live my life very differently. I mean, I'd like to think not very differently because I was doing a lot of things the right way before this happened. But I don't know, it's really changed how I look at the world.

[Podcast Host]

Let's change direction here. What are the differences for you, the big differences for you? What are you most struck by between Trump's first term and his second term? We've only been, what, five months into this one?

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

But you know, to me, the corruption is of a different order. I mean, in the first term, you know, like Saudi, Saudis would buy rooms, like whole floors of rooms in the Trump Hotel. And that was a way to get money to the, to the Trumps. Or Secret Service would have to rent rooms at Mar a Lago and rent the golf carts and that kind of thing. But now it's things like the Meme coin, you know, which is just a way of people getting on Trump's radar. What? There were 200 and some people who bought incredible amounts of his Meme coin, and it was like hundreds of millions of dollars or something like that, that this Trump family is that Trump himself was gaining. It just seems like a corruption on a higher order.

[Casey Hunt]

My sense of it is that the biggest difference is how much less people seem to care about it. Right. Like, there are any number of things that happen, and you've laid out, like, a series of things that have gone on. Right. I think there would have been a previous world where any single one of them would have caused public outrage on a very large scale. And I think that in the first Trump administration, you certainly saw some of that certainly from Democrats. Right. What do you mean, outrage? Right.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah. Like, there was, like, outrage. Right. You know, to the point that I think critics now would say that it was so across the board that it contributed to the problem. Like, if you're at a nine all the time on the outreach meter, no matter what the level of thing is, it all becomes. All starts to feel the same. I think that now, I mean, none of it breaks through, right? None of it breaks through. And if nothing matters, how does anything matter?

[Podcast Host]

Well, how about authoritarianism? Like, for example, these ICE guys who don't wear uniforms and wear masks and go up to people and handcuffs them and put them in a vehicle and take them off and their families can't find them. And, I mean, this seems like a very scary thing. Do you think people don't care about this? I think they do.

[Casey Hunt]

You know, I honestly never thought I would see that in America. Honestly. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, that looks like what authoritarianism looks like.

[Casey Hunt]

I think my question is, do, you know, do voters writ large, especially the voters that decide our elections, the ones that are in that to the extent they still exist, and I do believe that they still exist, how are they making this distinction? Because on the one hand, you can totally see arguments about antisemitism on college campuses and that being a problem and people not approving of it and wanting something to be done about it. Right. Does that get you to, you know, raids of students that, as you point out, are law enforcement officers with no insignia in these kind of very dramatic ways?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. We had that woman from Tufts who wrote an op ed, who, because of a camera on the street, just had guys come up and say, who didn't identify themselves seemingly, and just handcuffed her and threw her in the pokey.

[Casey Hunt]

And I would like to know, is it going to make a difference? I mean, I think big picture. You asked me about January 6th, the pardons. We skipped over the part where Donald Trump leaves, goes to Mar A Lago basically in disgrace, and then is rehabilitated over the course of a number of years. Just a really, and I say this, not picking a side in the election. It was like an objectively stunning arc of events. But that's where the American people led us. I think there's an argument to be made that the way that Democrats made decisions about who their nominees should be probably impacted whether or not Trump was gonna be president again.

[Podcast Host]

You think so?

[Casey Hunt]

But those two things happened at the time. Same, same time. Republican voters rehabilitated Trump in the wake of January 6th. And Democrats failed to disabuse Joe Biden of the notion that he was the only person that could beat Trump, when in fact he was probably the person least likely in the worst position to be able to do it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. His legacy will be defined in large part by that. He had said he was a transition figure and that he wasn't going to run the second time.

[Casey Hunt]

And I think voters believed him then. It's part of why that they were willing to trust him in 2020. So we only get really a chance every two years and then every four years to really figure out what people actually think about what's going on in terms of electoral outcomes and victories. And I don't think we have real opportunities to understand necessarily. We have polling, but it's all kind of flawed and it doesn't pull this apart. And I have real questions about how much people are paying attention to what you're outlining. I think that's also one of the biggest differences between Trump 1 and Trump 2 is the level of engagement from people versus the level of exhaustion. Right. There is a level of exhaustion.

[Podcast Host]

Well, how about the no kings?

[Casey Hunt]

That was the first, I feel like the first kind of moment where you saw a. And it's a new kind of framing. It's a new way of thinking about and pushing back on. That's unique to what we've seen from Trump this time. Structurally, the way that the House, the number of up for grabs House seats is so low now, it's hard to make blanket statements about it. But I would be surprised if Democrats don't retake the House because of the sort of level of drama that we've had.

[Podcast Host]

I think the tariffs were a remarkable change point in his administration because it's such a bad idea and he's not giving up on it.

[Casey Hunt]

Well, yeah, I mean, we've certainly seen. He's believed that for his whole political career. And has to be consistently disabused of it by people around him.

[Podcast Host]

And he said he'd bring down prices. And this is. The opposite is happening already on Chinese goods. And tariffs are inflationary.

[Casey Hunt]

They are inflationary. That is true. And they are a tax, typically, is how economists will talk about them. Obviously, the president doesn't like to talk about them that way. But I think that we've seen some of the storylines, like the storylines that are coming out of New York as well. I think the basic thing that has changed since, honestly, I was growing up, is that people don't think that the American dream is possible anymore. Right. Most people don't feel like their kids are going to be better off than they were, whereas those are, like, very fundamental to me. Right. Like, my parents are baby boomers. My grandfather was wounded in World War II. My dad was an Eagle Scout. Like, I was raised in a very patriotic way. Like, I, you know, I was. I consider myself a very patriotic person. And a big part of that was believing that you could do anything right in this country if you put your mind to it. And obviously, I also have both my parents went to college. I'm, you know, a white woman who grew up in suburban Philadelphia. Like, there are all these other reasons that would help me achieve things. But I also don't think that that attitude and that kind of perception was limited to people, in my. At least, not entirely limited to people with the advantages that I grew up with. And I think now people don't feel that way. And even people who come to it, like that lifestyle that I had, you know, my mom, she worked some when we were kids, but mostly didn't. And that's, you know, now I'm living in a suburban area, and people that I know who are trying to raise kids, most of them don't feel like they can afford to have a house on one income and the two incomes that they have, like, by any normal metric, you should be. Feel you should feel rich, right? But nobody feels rich, even if on paper they. They are. Like, everything has gotten harder and more expensive across the board. And I don't think people feel like they have what they need to ensure that their kids can do better than they did. Right. Like, they'll feel lucky if their kids have the same opportunities that they did. And it's very hard to imagine how that could be true. And I think that's, like, a fundamental shift in the way people think about America. And I think it's driven a lot of things in our politics. And I don't frankly know how to fix it.

[Podcast Host]

We had an election in New York where the guy who won, Mom, Donnie, really was looking out for the kind of people that you're talking about, the people who really feel that the economy doesn't work for them. I mean, the big beautiful bill is absolutely designed to give tax breaks to those at the top and screw those at the bottom by taking away Medicaid and taking away some of the ACA and snap. This is a bill that is going to be passed. I think, I think Republicans are intent on doing that well.

[Casey Hunt]

And I also think, hey, look, I take all of your points about what's in the bill. I will also say that this is not the kind of bill that the Republican Party that I first started covering when I came to Washington would pass. And you are seeing people like Josh Hawley out of Missouri say that the Medicaid cuts are too much for him. And you are seeing the President do things like say I don't want to tax tips. Right. Which is very much aimed squarely at those people that you're talking about in New York. And you have Democrats who work for President Obama writing op EDS in the New York Times about how it spends too much money and adds too much to the deficit. Right. Like Peter Orszag, deficit hawk and Josh Hawley, Medicaid defender. Like what world are we living in? It's not the same one that that existed when I came to Washington.

[Podcast Host]

But there are other senators like Ron Johnson, Rand Paul who want to cut more of the Medicaid.

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah. And I don't think the President's very happy with either of them. But you're right that I mean we have to see cuz right now, I mean frankly, the Senate is making changes that are more fiscally conservative than what the House did.

[Podcast Host]

Are the Republicans, senators more afraid of Trump? And do you feel that ultimately this will get passed?

[Casey Hunt]

I do think it's going to pass, yeah. I don't think they have any choice. Part of it too is there are they want to extend these sort of basic tax cuts because I think there is a feeling that if they don't like the tax cuts that Trump passed last time passed in his first term. Right. That that will feel like raising taxes to business and to families that it would impact. And if they allow that to happen, then they will be writing their own political death notes, basically. So I think that that fundamental pressure is gonna mean that they do it. But I don't know that it's an easy path. And I mean we're not living in a world where, like, John McCain's gonna go down to the floor and say thumbs down on some major thing and there's gonna be this big dramatic moment. I mean, it's just the world is different.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Who would that be? Thom Tillis.

[Casey Hunt]

Thom Tillis is one of the most interesting people out there right now. But yeah, it's a different dynamic.

[Alexandra Fedisof]

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[Podcast Host]

Just want to go to immigration for a little bit. Remember there was a day where Trump said we shouldn't be deporting these people who, like, work on farms. And maybe they're not legally here, but they've been working here for 20 years for this farmer and are solid members of the community. And there are all kinds of examples of these people. The people that are going to Home Depot and people who were working for a day job that day and they got swept up and that lasted a day. Right.

[Casey Hunt]

He went back and forth on this in the span of, I'm not sure exactly how many hours it was, but you're right that it was relatively quickly these raids were happening. He clearly received a call from, I mean, you know, he's been in the hospitality industry his whole career and obviously a lot of the rural farm states are places that voted for him. And these are where some of his most loyal voters are in some of these farms and clearly had heard from that community and they were saying, hey, like, let's not do that. I mean, when you cover Trump for a long time, there's this consistency about whoever he has talked to most recently, whoever has been able to get him on the phone most recently is perhaps what you're gonna hear from him at that point. So clearly someone got to him and then someone else got to him with this other situation. But this is why the question has always been the messaging on immigration was, well, okay, we're gonna get the criminals. And then the question was, I was like, okay, well, what are you gonna do about people who aren't criminals? Where do you draw the line?

[Podcast Host]

And that's what we saw in Los Angeles, that's what we've been seeing all over the place, is that they're rounding up these people who aren't criminals and they're taking people who are going in for their immigration hearing and then when they leave, arresting them.

[Casey Hunt]

Well, and that's when the demand is, you know, you need to detain 3,000 people per day if that's what you're trying, if that's the goal you're trying to meet. I mean, finding criminals who don't want to be found is a lot more complicated, expensive and difficult than going to a place where, you know, you're going to find people who are in the process of getting legal papers.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, they got. It was yesterday, I think, that this landscaper who was working at a hojo, these guys not in uniforms, with knee pads and helmets and guns, arrested this guy. And he's the father of three Marines. All his kids are citizens, all his kids are born here. And this guy is just a guy who goes to work every day, goes to work seven days a week and works for doing landscaping for businesses. And the family can't find him. I mean, this isn't what this is supposed to be, is it?

[Casey Hunt]

Well, and I think you've seen in some of these specific instances, I mean, you've seen. I've seen this with people in a small New York community with a restaurant owner who dressed up as Santa Claus. There are these instances where communities. Right. Because. Rally around when it's people that you don't know and you're concerned about crime. Right. That's one situation. And frankly, the border. Right. Security at the border is something that, the way that the President messaged on it, the way Republicans messaged on it, was absolutely a very clear winner with the American people. And even with a lot of, like a lot of Latinos who are living in the interior of the country, these people that have been here for 20 years also feel we should have security at the border. Right. And I think Republicans have been quite effective at essentially making it one in the same. Right. When there are people who are saying, we don't want to deport people in our communities who've been here for a long time who haven't committed crimes, the messaging is. It's easy to lump that together with another issue that is very much a winning issue for Republicans. But this also is not, you know, what President Trump promised on the campaign trail. Right. I mean, he on the campaign trail would say, we're going to deport the criminals. And it would be. You'd try to push them and like, you'd ask questions, you'd say, like, okay, what's next after that? Like, how are you going to hit this? And they would say, well, like, we're focused on the criminals. Like, that's where we're focused. Focused. Right. What we're getting is different. And again, my question is, are people going to look at and see that this is happening and decide that they're going to vote a different way because of it. I don't know. We're not going to get an answer to that question for another year.

[Podcast Host]

Well, I did hit on tariffs a little bit, but we're going to find out pretty soon whether this is a bigger disaster as it seems to be. I mean, already people are paying a lot more for things like Chinese goods. My wife had a pair of pants that she really liked that she got a couple months ago. She got it again like this week and it went from $27 to $37.

[Casey Hunt]

Yeah, it is very. I mean, if I click on the promotions tab in my inbox, that becomes very obvious very quickly. I mean, even I'm big into like interior design and I opened like a secondhand. It's like a secondhand shop basically online that sells furniture and art and things like that. And they have a whole section that's just American, like tariff free because you have to pay tariffs if it comes on a boat across the ocean, even though it's secondhand. I mean, it's very real. And I think that's why the President was so sensitive when he found out that a portion of Amazon was going to start posting on its website the tariff increase. Because the President knows people would react

[Podcast Host]

badly to that and he strong armed him. I mean, he.

[Casey Hunt]

Well, he called Bezos on the phone and then it went away. So I don't know. You tell me.

[Podcast Host]

That's exactly what I mean. Well, thank you. This has been delightful.

[Casey Hunt]

It's so delightful to be with you. I actually have a ton of questions. Like I wish I had a podcast that bring you on because I want to ask you so many things about your life.

[Podcast Host]

Well, you can always do that. I don't know. But you're pretty busy.

[Casey Hunt]

Yes, yes. Between a TV show and two small children, I have to say.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. How old are they?

[Casey Hunt]

They're five and two.

[Podcast Host]

And is the older one named Mars?

[Casey Hunt]

He is like the planet. Yeah. I didn't realize I was going to be saying that for the rest of my life, but I am Mars, like the planet.

[Podcast Host]

Well, maybe he'll be the first to

[Casey Hunt]

go to Mars, you know, I think he would like that, actually. We'll see. I hope so. That'd be fun.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I think Musk would be very happy with that.

[Casey Hunt]

I don't know. He's got a, you know, he's got plenty of kids in line for that, I think.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, that's true. Well, maybe he can be on the second. Yeah, maybe well, thanks, Casey.

[Casey Hunt]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening. That beautiful music is by Leo Katki, the great Leo Konki. I want to thank Peter Ogburn for producing this podcast. We'll talk again next week.

[Al Franken]

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[Casey Hunt]

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[Casey Hunt]

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