Kaitlan Collins Is Not “Nasty”; She’s Just Doing Her Job

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The New Yorker Radio Hour 30 min 7 speakers 8 chapters transcribed
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Who is Kaitlan Collins and what is her role?

Kaitlyn 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 Caitlin Collins.
Unknown 2:08
Can I ask you a question? No, not CNN, please. Go ahead. The White House has not responded. I told you. CNN is fake news. Don't talk to me. Go ahead, please.
But he says he was retaliated against. 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 Caitlin 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?
Caitlin Collins 2:53
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.

How has Trump's relationship with the press changed?

Caitlin Collins 3:14
CNN gets a ton of overnight email because we have so many international alerts. But the benefit of being on TV until 10 p.m. 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.
Yeah, I was going to ask you what the biggest difference is reporting wise between the first Trump administration and the second Trump administration.
Caitlin Collins 3:41
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 job 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.

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