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Politically Speaking
Interview by Bruce A. Percelay
Photography by Evan Mann
Kaitlan Collins, anchor of CNN’s nightly news program The Source, gets candid about American politics and challenges in the broadcasting world.
Kaitlan Collins is a CNN news anchor and host of The Source. She was the youngest network chief White House correspondent in CNN’s history and one of the youngest correspondents to hold this role for a major broadcast network. Collins is a frequent visitor to Nantucket and will be speaking at the Dreamland this month. She sat down with N Magazine to discuss a wide range of issues relating to politics and the future of cable news.
What is your connection to Nantucket?
My first time in Nantucket was actually when COVID was happening. I was supposed to go on a bachelorette trip for our best friend to Puerto Rico. It was in the first summer of COVID when obviously travel was greatly restricted and you couldn’t really go internationally. We said, “Let’s try Nantucket.” And it was just amazing. From the minute being there, we said, “OK, this is an amazing spot.”
You have entered the broadcast business at perhaps the most divisive and unsettled time in American politics that we have seen for a long time. Does today ’s political environment seem normal to you, given that you weren’t around during the days when rational thought ruled the day?
I think we just turned the volume up a lot in the last eight years. But I actually moved to Washington when I was 22. So I lived there during the last few years of Obama before Donald Trump became the kingmaker of the Republican Party and so nothing is ever normal. I was thinking about this the other day as we were planning out our show and reporting and guests ... the fact that we’ll know whether or not the former president is convicted, if he’s guilty or not guilty, and it’s kind of casual. It’s just remarkable in and of itself, and I think it speaks to what the last eight or nine years have looked like. For me as a reporter, it’s been an interesting and challenging time. But I think every reporter wants to cover history. And every reporter wants to be in the front row of that briefing room or in that interview chair or the anchor chair for those moments. It’s been a fascinating time. I’ve learned so much in the last eight years. But every year, every few months, it seems to somehow one up what you thought could never happen. After living through the 2016 election, the first few years of Trump in office, the pandemic really altered things, the 2020 election and the fallout from that—it’s remarkable how it still reverberates today.
And do you think the American public has become desensitized to the drama that we are all living through?
I don’t think fully desensitized, because I think if you talk to anyone, regardless of their political views, they have the same expression; things are so crazy, things feel out of control, there’s this sense of uncertainty, [whether] you find yourself on the left side of the political spectrum or on the right side, or somewhere in the middle, or you don’t really know where you belong in 2024. I think that’s also a really common theme that I hear from a lot of people. I do think people are desensitized to a degree, especially since the Trump trial. That’s just remarkable in and of itself, whatever you think of the prosecution and what he’s on trial for.
And I was thinking about this yesterday, when I was watching a rally of his where the crowd was chanting “Lock her up!” when he was talking about Hillary Clinton. Eight years ago, that was a massive headline, but it when it happens at dozens if not hundreds of rallies, it becomes less so because that’s what happens at a Trump rally.
Do you have to struggle to separate your own points of view when you’re interviewing someone or reporting on a story?
No, I don’t think so. I’m not political. So it’s not like I have a point of view of what’s right and what’s wrong. I think if I’m ever challenging someone, it’s because of the basis of truth and if what they’re saying strays from that. What I think is bipartisan and doesn’t have a political lens to it. I also think it’s really important to not be political because I want people to be able to trust me and to know that even if they don’t agree with me, or the questions I’m asking, that they do understand I’m a credible reporter, that I’m tough to people on both sides of the political aisle, and that I don’t have a dog in this fight. And I’m from Alabama. I come from a background that’s very conservative and leans towards the right. To live in Washington, and to live in New York City, I’m pretty familiar with how other people feel. I don’t live in a bubble. I want everyone to watch my show. I want people who live in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and I want my dad who lives in Prattville, Alabama, to be able to watch the show and learn something from what we’re reporting or find our conversation with an elected official engaging.
We’ve seen a level of partisanship in this country that we have not seen since the Civil War. The two major cable networks are perceived to be either in one camp or another. Do you feel that CNN is on one side and Fox is on the other and that the cable networks are part of the problem?
I don’t think that they’re part of the problem. I think it’s easy to blame the media because people watch it. A lot of people want their beliefs and their thinking confirmed by what they see. And that’s not our job. I understand when people seek that out, it’s comforting. People have their different preferences, but I don’t think that’s our job to cater to one political group or the other. I can speak for myself and how I approach the news. We had Senator James Lankford, one of the most conservative senators in the Senate, talking about immigration. We had Senator Ted Cruz talking about abortion and IVF and the election in 2024. We had Senator Bernie Sanders talking about Israel and how he won’t go to an address by Prime Minister Netanyahu. And so we run the spectrum. I don’t subscribe to the idea that CNN leans one way or the other. I came from working for a conservative outlet. I’m an Alabama girl, went to Alabama, went to a state school, and CNN hired me with no issue to cover Trump. It wasn’t even really a question. And as reporters, our job is to not be political and partisan.
It used to be that presidential debates were a given. Do you think that debates should be required, given the fact that so many elections have been moved by the debates themselves?
I don’t know if they should be required; however, they are historic. The chance that we were not going to have a debate this year, which I agree with you a few months ago seemed like a real possibility, was concerning, because I do think the American people are busy. They’re not just watching TV all day long. They’re not reading the paper every single day. I think people try to stay informed. So that’s why debates are useful because they crystallize what we cover every single day, and what I personally live and breathe. For a regular person, it’s helpful to see a debate and to watch the two go back to back and have this real engagement. Now in 2020, were the debates those thoughtful forums that helped people make a decision? I’m not necessarily sure, because if you watch the first one, it was just two old men screaming over one another the whole time. I think everyone kind of walked away from it exhausted and not better informed of a position. The second debate improved. I think the candidates both realized what [they] needed to look like. And so I do think that debates are really helpful. I don’t think they’re the whole story, but I do think that if you’re trying to be president of the United States, you should be willing to debate your opponent.
Given your age and that you are female, and that the Senate in particular is dominated by older males, how much of a challenge does that present in you doing your job?
If anything, maybe it helps, because maybe people underestimate me or don’t take me seriously. I’ve never found it to be a challenge. I think anytime someone maybe questioned whether I’m too young or whatever assumptions there are, I think the only way you can respond to that is to prove them wrong by doing the work. That’s been my life ever since I’ve been at CNN, certainly, from being at the White House to the morning show to the last year. Every day, the slate is wiped clean, and we have to put on a new show that is informative and thoughtful. If anyone underestimates me, that’s fine. But I don’t think I’ve ever found it to be a challenge. I think hard work supersedes everything.
Over the decades, since television started, there have been a lot of legendary broadcasters. Are there ones or one in particular that you look up to or measure yourself against, or you are inspired by?
I love to learn about people’s stories and their paths and how they got to where they are. You grow up thinking, everyone did the same thing, but they didn’t. Right now I’m reading Susan Page’s biography of Barbara Walters, and she had this incredibly interesting life. And her dad was this entertainer and always had venues and shows and these clubs, and it made her this more outgoing person. And she talks about how hard she had to work just to get an interview, just to have a segment that was on fashion and makeup. One time she had to be one of the swimsuit models on the Today Show. The change in what it’s like to be a woman reporter or any reporter growing up in this business now, it’s so different than it was just not that long ago. I’m fascinated by that. But I look up to a lot of people and I love to watch Tim Russert interviews. I love to look at Ed Murrow, Barbara Walters, Christiane Amanpour, Clarissa Ward, one of our best war correspondents. I’m always learning from other people and how talented they are. And I think that’s how you get better at anything is to just learn from people who are already really good at it.
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