
The CNN anchor and chief White House correspondent talks with the guest host Clare Malone about covering the Trump Administrations—and how Trump’s circle isn’t as hostile as it seems.
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David Remnick
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Kaitlan Collins
New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production.
David Remnick
Of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.
Claire Malone
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Claire Malone. I'm a staff writer and I cover politics and the media business. David Remnick is off this week. When I talk to longtime journalists about Donald Trump, I sometimes hear a kind of astonishment about how American politics change so much so quickly. You're probably familiar with what I'm talking about. Even 10 years into Trump's emergence in national politics, we are shocked that a president could threaten to annex Canada, for example, or blame DEI for a plane crash. Trump is not outside the box, to use the old phrase, he blew up the box. And it's instinctive for people who have covered politics for a long time to point out how far afield he's gone. Not to mention it's also part of our job. Kaitlan Collins was only a couple years out of college when she became White House correspondent for the Daily Caller, the news and opinion site co founded by Tucker Carlson. Professionally, she's pretty much only known the feverish Trump media environment. Collins went over to CNN during Trump's first term, and she's returned to the White House for his second term. Now, Trump, of course, disdains cnn, and he's not a big fan of Kaitlan Collins.
Kaitlan Collins
Can I ask you a question?
Donald Trump
No, not cnn. Please, go ahead.
Kaitlan Collins
The White House has not responded.
Donald Trump
You don't responded, then it's fake news. Don't talk to me. Go ahead, please.
Kaitlan Collins
But he says he was retaliated against.
Claire Malone
He called her nasty, and at one point she was barred from a press conference. We've never had a White House so openly hostile to the press as we do now. And how journalists can actually report in this environment is something I want to talk about with Kaitlan Collins. We spoke last week. So, Caitlin, you've said before that you have to get up before the tweets. And I'm kind of curious. You have essentially two jobs. What are all of the things that you're reading first thing in the morning to help you prep for a day at the White House?
Kaitlan Collins
There's just so much to look through with Trump because he doesn't really sleep that much. You know, you wake up to a Truth Social post from him about how he's voiding all the pardons that President Biden issued. I do look at Truth Social as one of my first stops just to see what he has said. Then I'll look at my email. CNN gets a ton of overnight email because we have so many international alerts. But the benefit of being on TV until 10pm Eastern is, you know, there's not a ton that I miss overnight anymore like before there used to be, but because I work so late that I don't really miss that much, if that makes sense.
Claire Malone
Yeah. I was going to ask you what the biggest difference is, reporting wise, between the first Trump administration and the second Trump administration.
Kaitlan Collins
A lot of the staff is actually quite similar. There's massive changes in the staff, but a lot of the core staff around him are the same people that have been around him for the last four years. Trump himself, though, is unchanged in the sense of his schedule and how he operates. And so I think if you've covered it round one, it's not that it's any less chaotic or less busy, but you're just kind of more adjusted to it. Doing the chief White House correspondent and doing my show, Knock on Wood has not actually been that much of a stretch for me because they're so intertwined. But I think it's because I know how Trump operates. And, you know, he doesn't really do much in the morning. Maybe he'll be posting, but he's not doing a lot of like meetings or press conferences or anything. And then in the afternoons it can be quite busy and you could be going in there for a 45 minute press conference and you've really got to be paying attention to what's the headline here. So there's so much that that's different, but so much that it is incredibly similar to round one, the White House.
Claire Malone
Briefing room in general. The back and forths like, you know, an interaction between you and Carolyn Levitt became, you know, a New York Post story. Right. You know, an Exchange between Caitlin, CNN's Caitlin Collins and Carolyn Levitt. There is a confrontational edge to how she interacts with you, interacts with other reporters. Here's a clip from the other day.
Kaitlan Collins
That would propose perhaps criminal or illegal behavior if staff members were signing the President of the United States autograph without his consent, is on the record talking about issuing preemptive pardons to these people. But was he aware of his signature being used on every single pardon That's a question you should ask the Biden White House. Do you have any evidence on that that he wasn't aware of it? You're a reporter. You should find out.
Claire Malone
Sean, I'm curious how you think about strategically handling that kind of frision between you and the White House press secretary.
Kaitlan Collins
If you watch the interaction, it's not as sensational as the New York Post makes it seem. I think they just do that for clicks. Two, I think that there's a job to do for each of us in terms of her job is to spin for her boss. I mean, people will disagree if you're the press secretary, what your role is. But as a Trump spokesperson, that is your job. And my job is to ask questions and get answers. And there's always a natural tension between the press secretary for anyone and the press that covers them. And Trump watches these briefings really closely. He handed Caroline Levitt, had someone pass her a note in the middle of a briefing the other day and asked her to highlight a poll. And that was while she was out at the podium. And so that was notable. But I think the third thing is, and this has always been my mantra, kind of since round one, it's not about me. Like, and if you let them make it about you, I think you're losing. And so whenever I'm in there, I'm not trying to get in an argument or engage in some kind of fight. You know, I'm going to ask my questions and I'm going to be persistent. And so I think that's always important to remember is that, you know, it's not about you.
Claire Malone
But I'm curious if from first term to second term, the, I guess the social media trickle down feels at all different when it comes back to you, right? The way that those, those clips are aggregated out, does that tangibly feel different to you?
Kaitlan Collins
Like, being on Twitter is a vastly different environment than it was when I was covering Trump eight years ago. And eight years ago, I found it to be more useful in terms of disagreement and engagement. That's not the case anymore, really. It's certainly much more on the right, like, shifted to the right. And so certainly, like my. The response I see on there is way different now than it was eight years ago. I know everyone says this, but it truly is not the real world, because I'll see one narrative on there and then I'll be out living my life and talking to sources or random people in the airports and, you know, just anywhere. And it's a completely different view. And Lens. It's really remarkable, actually.
Claire Malone
So I. I use Twitter and Blue sky, and it's. It's really interesting to. And Blue sky, you know, leans left, I think. Right. So it's really interesting to toggle between those two apps and just see how certain stories are being digested by.
Kaitlan Collins
And then you're on threads, and it's like a different planet.
Claire Malone
Threads is about, like, middle school teachers being like, let me tell you a story about the worst student I ever had. And it's.
Kaitlan Collins
Or it's like tips on cooking or something. I know it's like there's so many. There's such different social media environments. But you do see how people can have their beliefs reinforced so easily by going online and choosing, you know, their platform. My dad will see things on Facebook about me and then call me to ask if it's true. Sometimes it's, you know, it's just so funny. My dad's like, I saw this. And, you know, it's just. It just shows you that people can. Can choose their own narratives.
Claire Malone
Yeah. Do you think the majority of Americans have an accurate understanding of politics based on the news they consume?
Kaitlan Collins
I can see completely different worldviews of something. The Zelensky meeting is a really good example. I was in the Oval Office for that. Cause CNN was the pool that day, and we knew it would be tense. We knew it would be noteworthy. We had no idea that it was going to be like that. I mean, in that room, a pin could have dropped, and no one was saying a word except the three of them. And then hearing how other people saw it, either people who were on the left or not in touch with the news or on the right. It was remarkable just to see how people's views of it were from what they saw on social media and in the news, in the headlines and whatnot.
Claire Malone
The White House press pool and the way it's changed, obviously, the White House is now deciding who can travel with the pool. How has that changed? How press briefings are, how even. Just like being in the pool is.
Kaitlan Collins
What happened for people who don't. Aren't in the weeds on this is the White House took over the White House Correspondence association, which is its own independent entities with responsibilities of determining the pool and the rotation every day, which is who's in it for tv, who's in it for radio, who's in it for print. And the point of the pool is just that 30 reporters can't go with the President wherever he goes. What's different, though, is they're adding People in. And so you'll go in and there are people from right leaning broadcast or outlets that are included in addition to the regular pool. The main difference, and one that I disagree with, is blocking the Associated Press from being part of that pool. Typically they would go in every single day with the wires and they have not let them in as they're in their court fight. The AP is suing Trump, changes the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. They did not identify that. And my question, as I asked at the briefing when this all happened, was its retaliatory in nature. We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office. And you all have credentials to be here, including the Associated Press, who is in this briefing room today. But isn't it retaliatory in nature? Is the argument because the reason that the AP was barred, which they said was because they're not using the phrase Gulf of America, they're using Gulf of Mexico in line with their standards. And so the question here is, is this setting a precedent that this White House will retaliate against reporters who don't use the language that you guys believe reporters should use? And how does that align with the First Amendment commitment that you were just talking about? I was in the briefing yesterday and the Associated Press reporter who was in there got a question. And so they're not. It's not a complete block on them. The question is really whether or not the White House has changed since then to where they now control the pool. That is the question here in terms of whether or not they are ultimately successful here.
Claire Malone
And you've been pretty involved with that organization, right? The whca.
Kaitlan Collins
I was the president, technically.
Claire Malone
Okay, you were.
Kaitlan Collins
It is a serious organization and they don't play favorites. And when I ran for president, you run, It's a three year term. You know, I had to run a really competitive race. And what you do as part of that race, that actually was really beneficial to me was you have to call hundreds of members of the WHCA and solicit their views, get their feedback. What do they not like? What do they like? It's a real race. I have like a newfound respect for politicians, which I don't generally say after running it because it was really difficult. And so this would have been my year to be the president. I moved to New York for two years and so I had to relinquish the role, unfortunately. But the WHCA is not playing favorites or not blocking certain outlets. They just take it really seriously because the jobs of being in the pool are very serious. You could be in the pool on a day like 9, 11. You could be in the pool on a day that there's an attempted assassination. I mean, these are not. And a lot of the days it's boring and you're just kind of hanging out in a van. But you have to be ready for those moments and you have to be ready to deliver for the rest of the press corps and the American people in that front. And so it's an incredibly serious position. It's not just you're getting time in the Oval Office. It has very serious responsibilities to it. You know, I love the White House press corps. I feel like professionally I grew up with them because I've been part of it since I was 25 years old. And I just, you know, I see how hard those people work and how they really are just trying to get answers and do their jobs. And so, you know, I have just a huge respect and appreciation for all of them.
Claire Malone
Interviews for print and for broadcast are so different. The modes of them are so different in many ways. And I'm curious how you think about fact checking in real time. Is it truly possible or reasonable to expect that you can fact check everything someone says in your interview on air?
Kaitlan Collins
You have to fact check, and I think you have to do it in a way that doesn't derail your interview. What do they typically say? Is it true? And how can we correct whatever it is, but also continue with the interview? And so we want to make sure that it's going in the direction that we thought about and that we think is the best use of our viewers time. If someone I know is going to say something, because a lot of times politicians say the same thing over and over again. And I'll try to either correct it and press them on it if they've never been pressed on it, or if it's something that's obviously false. But is them kind of deflecting because they don't answer the question that I did ask? We'll correct it and then return to the question. But you're dealing with this and it's happening in real time. You don't always know what they're going to say. And you've got a compressed time frame. You don't have 20 or 30 minutes. Sometimes I go a little longer than my team would like and they're telling me to wrap and I just keep going. But I think you have to do it because some people are watching and they don't know that that's not true. And you've got to correct that and make sure that, that you're adhering to that.
Claire Malone
You know, you hosted a CNN town hall with Trump during his reelection campaign. This was in 2023. And there's a moment when he calls you a nasty person.
Kaitlan Collins
Question that investigators have, I think is why you held onto those documents when you knew the federal government was seeking them and then had given you a subpoena to return. Are you ready?
Donald Trump
Are you ready? Can I talk?
Kaitlan Collins
Yeah. What's the answer? Can I.
Donald Trump
Do you mind?
Kaitlan Collins
I would like for you to answer the question.
Donald Trump
Okay. It's very simple to answer.
Kaitlan Collins
That's why I asked it.
Donald Trump
It's very simple to. You're a nasty person. I'll tell you.
Claire Malone
I'm curious for your, your reaction in that moment, both as a person that's happening too, and also as a person who's hosting a live television program.
Kaitlan Collins
Trump had not done a real interview with a non friendly outlet, I don't think, since he had left office. And so on camera, I think he'd done a lot of book interviews, but he hadn't done anything like that. And so people had not seen Trump in a while. And I think also the Republican audience, it was Republican and Republican leaning independents in New Hampshire, they were really friendly and receptive to him. I think that was actually really prescient because he went on to win the nomination and then the election, and we saw the numbers of that. And so I actually thought it was a really useful night because it was kind of a glimpse, if you were paying attention then into what was to come. We asked him about January 6 and classified documents, two subjects that I knew he did not want to talk about. It's kind of one of those moments where the question is more important and not letting yourself get, you know, turned off from what you're, what you're trying to ask or distracted. And so that was my intent going into it. And I really didn't have a personal reaction to it. It was just, okay, he's not answering the question was really the thought going through my mind.
Claire Malone
I'm curious for your take on what the best way for TV outlets, TV news outlets to cover Trump. Do we still not have a clear answer a decade later?
Kaitlan Collins
I think we've gotten a lot better actually at covering Trump. When I was preparing for that town hall, I watched maybe five or six town halls that Trump did in 2016. I watched a bunch of interviews that he did when he was in office in his first term. And if you go back and watch those town halls or those early interviews, the tone is so different and the approach is so different. And I think part of it was a lot of people did not take him seriously and did not believe that he had the political power that we now, you know, his biggest critics will acknowledge that he has talk to any Democrat and they'll acknowledge Trump has the firmest grip on the Republican Party that anyone has had in decades. I think right now how people are covering his second term in the last eight weeks so far in terms of fact checking his speeches, how people ask questions and just how they conduct that, I do think maybe it's not perfect. I would never say that I think we can always do better, but I do think that people have gotten much better at covering him.
Claire Malone
I'm talking with CNN's Kaitlan Collins. We'll come back to her time working for Tucker Carlson at the Daily Caller in just a minute. I'm Claire Malone and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
David Remnick
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Claire Malone
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Claire Malone, sitting in today for David Remnick. I've been speaking with Caitlin Collins. Collins is the host of CNN's nightly program the Source, and she's CNN's chief White House correspondent, too. When Collins was hired at CNN, the news attracted some attention. She was only 25 at the time, and she had been covering the White House for the Daily Caller, the news and opinion site co founded by Tucker Carlson. It was described as a conservative answer to the Huffington Post. You got your start at Tucker Carlson's new site, the Daily Caller. How are you imagining your career at that time?
Kaitlan Collins
Certainly did not think that it would be where it is now. Someone actually sent me a picture the other day from like 2016 when we were in the Daily Caller newsroom. And it was just so funny to go back and look at like one. I just look so young. But also just to think of all the things that I've reported on and experienced since then and grown so much as a reporter is remarkable to look at. And it's around this time, eight years ago that I got my job at cnn. So I'm also kind of more reflective in that sense as well. But also I was on the campaign trail in 2016 with the Daily Caller, and we would go out, Tucker thought it was important for us to go to caucuses and primaries and to kind of see all that stuff up close, which I had never done before. And so I think I was 24 or 23 at the time. And so that was actually really helpful to me because when I started covering Trump, I had just a better understanding of that orbit around him and the people that were surrounding themselves with him now and what that looked like. And it actually has been really beneficial to me. I think, as, as I've been covering him for the last eight years, the.
Claire Malone
Right wing ecosystem in media is, is in some ways so much more hardcore and hard right than it was 10 years ago. And Tucker in particular, I think exemplifies that. I'm sort of curious what you make of his career arc over the past decade.
Kaitlan Collins
Well, on just the right in general, I think they're emboldened by Trump's win. Tucker obviously was running the Daily Caller when I was there. He worked at Fox, but it wasn't. He didn't have a primetime show and wasn't, you know, the king of cable as he became and had TV that, you know, the White House felt was must see television because whatever he was talking about that night in his monologue, Trump would likely be talking about the next day. Like, that's what I heard from senior staff in the White House the last time. He is someone who has worked at every cable outlet, Fox, CNN and MSNBC throughout his career and now is in this moment using his influence in a different way. And I think that is something that I've been watching as well with Trump is his moving away from the traditional kind of Rupert Murdoch esque level of influence to the Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, more right wing podcasters kind of level of influence. We saw that during the campaign, which I thought was fascinating because I think if Rupert Murdoch had called Trump as he did this time in 2016 and said, you should pick this person as your vice president, Trump probably would have picked them. But he did that this time and said, you should pick Doug Burgum. I think maybe not explicitly, but this is what we were told. And Trump went with J.D. vance. And I just thought that really said a lot about who Trump is listening to and how that landscape shift has even made it into his inner circle.
Claire Malone
What was that transition like from explicit right wing media to, you know, CNN brands itself as neutral. I'm curious what that was like.
Kaitlan Collins
I was nervous less because the ideology, because I'm not ideological. Like I've always been a reporter and that has always been kind of my like, driving force. And CNN is also just massive. But so quickly I realized, you know, these people only are interested in what I'm reporting. They don't care, like where I came from. They're like, how can you use that in your sources to bring scoops here and to get reporting and to do a really good live shot? And that was actually really refreshing to me because I was bracing for people to maybe treat me differently. When I started at cnn and I remember like the announcement, people were like, what? And just, you know, within weeks of starting at cnn, I realized how helpful it was and that the sheer size of it was big. But also the resources were really helpful.
Claire Malone
Do you feel like your sourcing relationships with people on the right changed when you got to cnn?
Kaitlan Collins
No, because I think actually it helped because they felt, you know, from their view, they had someone who kind of understood them and a bigger platform that worked at. Well, that worked at cnn and maybe they didn't have a lot of relationships with people there. And also in the Trump White House, you know, the front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Journal and cable news is like where his attention goes. And so people would bring stuff to TV reporters because they wanted to get.
Claire Malone
It on tv, you just described yourself as apolitical. And you've done it before. You've said, and I'm quoting here, it's not like I have a point of view of what's right and of what's right and what's wrong. What I think is bipartisan and doesn't have a political lens to it. And I'm curious, do you really hold no political opinions, or do you just avoid them for the sake of objectivity?
Kaitlan Collins
I'm still a human, obviously. Like, I have lived experiences and thoughts and views on things, but I don't think that I have strong ideological opinions when I go into a briefing or a press conference on certain. Certain things. And what I want to do is, here's the reporting. Here it is. And this is, you know, by. By apolitical and not biased. That doesn't mean that you're just saying it very mundane and straightforward. I'm saying, here's the context and here's, you know, if you're being bullshitted, here's, you know, the answer that to that, and you take with that what you will. You form your own opinion off of that.
Claire Malone
You're in regular communication with a lot of the same people Trump is. Your show is called the Source. I think it tips to that nature of reporting. How do you maintain those relationships, leverage those conversations into something useful to be reported when the administration is so publicly hostile towards media, when there's a little bit of, like, a sideshow that feeds social media about, you know, bashing reporters, Is it different behind the scenes with people?
Kaitlan Collins
Certainly it's a very different operating environment than, I think, covering Biden or covering any other president, because they're much more in your face and will publicly say whatever. But I think as you're approaching that, when you have these personal relationships with people, and a lot of them, again, I've known and reported on for eight years now, my perception is they're much more hostile publicly than they are privately. And I think that speaks to Trump himself. I mean, he is that way as well. He's very critical publicly. But if he's doing it off the record or he'll come back to talk to the media, you know, his. His view is different and his attitude is different. Now, does that mean they love us and they're telling us everything behind the scenes? No. A lot of what you're doing as a reporter is trying to discern what's real, what's someone trying to knife somebody else. And, you know, what's the most accurate version of events that happened behind closed doors.
Claire Malone
Trump criticized you for asking why he was blaming DEI for the fatal DC Plane crash earlier this year.
Kaitlan Collins
Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?
Donald Trump
I don't think so at all. I don't think. Were the names of the people. You mean the names of the people that are on the plane? You think that's going to make a difference?
Kaitlan Collins
They are.
Donald Trump
They are a group of people that have lost their lives. If you want a list of the names, we can give you that. We'll be giving that very soon. We're in coordination with American Airlines. We're in coordination very strongly, obviously, with the military. But I think that's not a very smart question. I'm surprised coming from you. Please.
Claire Malone
What do you do when the president or the press secretary tries to make you specifically look biased against him?
Kaitlan Collins
That collision happened right before my show. And so we were the first show to cover it, really getting an understanding. That was when we found out that there were a lot of humans on board and probably none of them were alive. And we stayed on air till 2am that morning covering it. I got home, I woke up, and Trump was calling a press conference. And so, you know, people's bodies were still being pulled out of the river, and a lot of their loved ones that I had been, like, talking to or texting with, they were still very much in the middle of that. And so for Trump to come out and immediately start blaming something when the investigation was hours old, I think those are moments where you have to have real clarity as a reporter of, like, what are the people watching this feeling and what is important to be called out and kind of say what everyone's thinking. And that was what I thought I did in that moment. As far as Trump, I think he's someone who seeks the validation of the press as much as he criticizes them publicly. And so it doesn't really bother me when he gets upset at my question, because our job is to ask the questions. He can respond however he wants to respond. That is his prerogative. And it shouldn't influence really what you're asking or how you're asking it. In my view.
Claire Malone
Many outlets, including cnn, have seen layoffs. This is a little bit in the same point. But how does CNN stay relevant? And how do you stay relevant in a time when, you know, there's a lot of talk about linear television falling apart, let alone with the political environment? How do you think through that, that changing medium?
Kaitlan Collins
Yeah, I don't think it's falling apart just yet. I think people are, their habits and attitudes are changing in terms of how they get their news. When there's a debate, when a war breaks out, when there's a plane crash, when there's something like that or, you know, federal workers are being fired by the hundreds and thousands, people do tune in and they want to watch that. But I do think people are changing their habits. And I see this because I have a little brother who's 21 and he watches CNN on his phone or he'll like see my Instagram videos with my reporting from that day or my tweets. And that's how he gets the news. He's not watching the show every single night. But I think it's like, you know, just meeting people where they are. And I think it's our boss's jobs to figure that out and how we get there. Luckily, it's not my job, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I think to adapt is natural.
Claire Malone
Caitlin, thank you so much for coming on.
Kaitlan Collins
Thank you for having me.
Claire Malone
You can see Caitlin Collins weeknights on CNN's the Source. She's the network's chief White House correspondent. And I'm Claire Malone, a staff writer at the New Yorker. David Remnick will be back next week. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for joining us.
Kaitlan Collins
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a.
David Remnick
Co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Toon Yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul and Ursula Sommer. With guidance from Emily Bottin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan and Alejandra Deckett.
Kaitlan Collins
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Revolve around press screenings, premieres, film festivals, Q&As, set visits, award ceremonies. Not that we're complaining, it's pretty great. But you know that feeling when you see a new film or show and you want to talk about it with everyone immediately. We feel that all the time. Yes, we sure do.
Kaitlan Collins
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Claire Malone
I'm David Canfield. And I'm Rebecca Ford. On Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's flagship entertainment podcast, we discuss today's most exciting films and TV shows. David and I are fresh off attending the LA premiere last night. Break down the latest developments in the awards races.
Kaitlan Collins
Gomez and Grande split the pop girly.
Claire Malone
Vote and catch up with Hollywood's biggest movers and shakers. Demi Moore, welcome to the show.
Donald Trump
Thank you for having me.
Kaitlan Collins
Whether you're a casual viewer or an.
Claire Malone
Industry buff, this is the podcast for you.
Kaitlan Collins
New episodes are published every Tuesday and Thursday. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men.
Claire Malone
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Summary of "Kaitlan Collins Is Not 'Nasty'; She’s Just Doing Her Job" – The New Yorker Radio Hour
Release Date: March 21, 2025
Host: Claire Malone
Guest: Kaitlan Collins, CNN's Chief White House Correspondent and Host of "The Source"
Claire Malone opens the episode by highlighting the rapid and unprecedented changes in American politics, particularly under Donald Trump's influence. She underscores Trump's tendency to "blow up the box," pushing political norms beyond recognition. This sets the stage for an in-depth conversation with Kaitlan Collins, a seasoned journalist navigating this tumultuous environment.
Kaitlan Collins began her career at the Daily Caller, a conservative news and opinion site co-founded by Tucker Carlson. At just 25, she transitioned to CNN during Trump's first term and has since been a prominent figure covering the White House.
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Collins discusses the similarities between Trump's first and second terms, noting that while staff changes occur, Trump's operational style remains consistent. She emphasizes that her experience from the first term equips her to handle the chaos and intensity of the second.
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The conversation delves into the increasingly hostile relationship between the Trump administration and the press. Collins recounts instances where Trump publicly criticized her, labeling her "nasty," and moments when she was barred from press conferences.
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Collins reflects on the evolution of social media platforms since she began her career. She notes the polarization of platforms like Twitter, Blue Sky, and Threads, and how they influence public perception and reinforce individual narratives.
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[06:41] Kaitlan Collins: "Being on Twitter is a vastly different environment than it was when I was covering Trump eight years ago."
[07:42] Claire Malone: "Threads is like a different planet."
Addressing the challenges of real-time fact-checking during live interviews, Collins explains her approach to verifying information without derailing the conversation. She emphasizes the importance of maintaining journalistic integrity while keeping the interview on track.
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One of the episode's key discussions revolves around Collins hosting a CNN town hall with Trump during his reelection campaign in 2023. During this live interview, Trump labeled her a "nasty person" when pressed on sensitive topics like classified documents. Collins shares her strategy of focusing on the questions and maintaining professionalism despite Trump's provocations.
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[14:30] Donald Trump: "You're a nasty person. I'll tell you."
[15:00] Kaitlan Collins: "It was just, okay, he's not answering the question was really the thought going through my mind."
Collins discusses her seamless transition from a right-leaning media environment at the Daily Caller to a mainstream news outlet like CNN. She highlights the support and resources at CNN that enabled her to expand her reporting capabilities without compromising her journalistic values.
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Despite the publicly hostile environment, Collins emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining personal relationships with sources. She believes that public criticism does not necessarily reflect private interactions, allowing her to extract accurate information and provide balanced reporting.
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Addressing concerns about the relevance of traditional TV news amidst the rise of digital media, Collins shares her observations on shifting news consumption habits. She notes that while linear television remains significant during major events, the future lies in adapting to diverse digital platforms to meet audiences where they are.
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Claire Malone wraps up the interview by acknowledging Collins' resilience and adaptability in an ever-evolving political and media landscape. Collins reaffirms her commitment to objective reporting, emphasizing that despite personal attacks, her focus remains on delivering accurate and impactful journalism.
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This comprehensive discussion with Kaitlan Collins offers valuable insights into the challenges and strategies of modern journalism, especially when covering a polarizing figure like Donald Trump. It underscores the importance of adaptability, resilience, and unwavering commitment to truth in the ever-changing landscape of American politics and media.