Contained in the Hive host Brian Stelter checks in with veteran political reporter and CNN anchor Kasie Hunt contemporary off her reporting journey to Iowa, the place Donald Trump trounced Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, and on to New Hampshire, the following cease in a GOP race that already feels all however settled. “It’s terribly arduous to see how both of them stops Donald Trump’s march to the nomination,” Hunt says.
Hunt displays on what she’s noticed overlaying Trump since he got here down “that golden escalator” at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy, in June 2015, at a few of his first rallies in Iowa—and thru this previous week’s caucus. “There’s a distinction between how individuals really feel about and act round Donald Trump than there’s to how they act round what I’d confer with as, like, a standard political candidate,” she says.
“The response to and therapy of Donald Trump has at all times been totally different,” she says. “It’s extra like how individuals reply to Taylor Swift than how they reply to extra conventional varieties of candidates. Clearly, there are main variations between Taylor and Donald Trump. However the celeb of it, and simply the best way persons are captivated by who he’s. They need to be near him. It’s only a a lot totally different feeling.”
Hunt additionally notes how the 2024 departs from previous primaries, the place there was heated competitors and a slew of candidates (accompanied by a horde of journalists) racing in a single day from Iowa to New Hampshire.
“There was a lot suspense. It was truthfully a lot enjoyable, proper? Like, it was democracy at its highest,” she says. “I say all of this as a result of it actually supplies a distinction to what I skilled earlier this week, as a result of this time it was us, a handful of reporters, a a lot smaller quantity than usually do that, and there was just one candidate, [Haley], they usually didn’t have any press on their airplane.… It wasn’t the identical. It actually sort of underscored simply how a lot smaller the entire thing was within the face of attempting to tackle Donald Trump. The explanation why there’s no suspense now could be as a result of no person was capable of create it within the 12 months that they have been attempting to run towards Donald Trump.”
“As a lot as I really like these items, and I used to be thrilled to be in Iowa, and it was a lot enjoyable to be in New Hampshire,” she provides, “it’s only a totally different sort of election.”
