Before we get into the details of the opening segment of today’s CNN This Morning, there’s a broader, more significant, point to be made.

There was none of the catastrophization of Trump that the liberal media dished out throughout the campaign. No talk about existential threats to democracy, Trump as Hitler, this election being the last, etc.

Instead, the focus was on Trump as a cultural, as well as a political, phenomenon.

But before host Kasie Hunt ventured into that, she mocked Joe Biden in a manner that could have been made into a Republican ad before Ol’ Joe quit the race.

As the show rolled video of Biden in the Brazilian Amazon, turning his back to the camera and walking off, Hunt said:

“President Biden prepares to step off the world stage this week, here he was in Brazil earlier this week. The first sitting president to visit the Amazon, seeming to [dramatic pause] wander into the jungle [shakes head]. He missed this group photo of the G20 leaders, apparently due to a scheduling conflict.”

Ouch!

Hunt promptly segued into calling Trump’s nominees a “made-for-TV cast of characters,” and rolled video clips of a number of them (some of them quite dated) making unusual, shall we say, statements! She also quoted liberal Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) quipping “we’re becoming the world’s first nuclear-armed reality television show.”

Hunt began the segment by saying “it’s increasingly clear it is Donald Trump’s world, and we’re just living in it.” 

That’s a far cry from what you might have imagined an MSM host saying just a few weeks ago. Something along the lines: “We risk being plunged into a Trumpian hellscape in which neither we as individuals, nor the republic itself, are likely to survive!”

And speaking of Trump’s cultural influence, the show displayed a clip of a UFC fighter [with Trump in attendance] doing the Trump dance after his victory. And Hunt later observed:

“This idea of Trump as a cultural force, right? . . . The Trump dance in particular. We have now seen kind of across sports fields, there does seem to be a sense that there were people who were not publicly embracing Trump, who, in the wake of the election results, seem willing to do that.”

Indeed. For that matter, “in the wake of the election results,” we’ve seen two virulent Trump antagonists on another network make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago!

At the end of the segment, Hunt expressed shock that Elon Musk has turned up in Trump family photos, with CNN analyst Mark Preston calling it “bizarro.” Nothing bizarre at all, considering that as one Trump family member has described it, Musk has achieved “uncle status.”

Here’s the transcript.

CNN This Morning 
11/20/24
6:00 am ET

KASIE HUNT: This morning, it’s increasingly clear it is Donald Trump’s world, and we’re just living in it. 

The most powerful rocket ever built, blasting off from Texas yesterday with its creator, Elon Musk, looking on with the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, wearing a hat, said 45 and 47. Making the trip with his billionaire buddy to take in the launch just days after they both attended a UFC fight at Madison Square Garden, where the winner did Trump’s signature dance after the knockout. 

All of this, as President Biden prepares to step off the world stage. Here he was in Brazil earlier this week. The first sitting president to visit the Amazon seeming to wander into the jungle. He missed this the group photo of the G20 leaders, apparently due to a [pauses] scheduling conflict. 

He is stepping off the stage as this made-for-TV cast of characters steps on stage for the new Trump administration.

DR. OZ: This is what forced golden [?] does to your belly fat [lights a yellow balloon which instantly goes up in flames.] Whoa!

LINDA MCMAHON: [In the ring, speaking to a fighter wearing a F-CK Fear t-shirt] You wanna stay on, you gotta play by the rules. But it’s up to you, Steve.

PETE HEGSETH: [On Fox News set] I don’t think I’ve washed my hands for ten years. [Other hosts are shocked.] Really? I don’t, I don’t really wash myhands, ever. 

ACTOR: I think not. That’s what kind of house we live in. It’s pretty sad. 

DONALD TRUMP: [From The Apprentice, speaking to a contestant.] The branding absolutely missed the mark. You were in charge of branding. Star: you’re fired.

. . . 

MARK PRESTON: It is amazing to have the wealthiest one of, you know, one of the most powerful person in the world, right next to Donald Trump. And then you have to wonder: they’re buddies, right now. But I don’t know very many relationships that, that Donald Trump, you know, fosters and maintains.

HUNT: Well, it’s often hard for two egos to—let’s be candid, male egos of this size—to stand next to each other in the same space for a long time, particularly with these two. 

But Meagan Hays, the Democratic congressman, Jim Himes, who is, to be clear, a serious guy on the Intelligence Committee, he said this, quote, “we’re becoming the world’s first nuclear-armed reality television show.”

MEGHAN HAYS: I mean, he’s not wrong. Everyone running for the cabinet has been been on TV. Who knew that was the pipeline to being a cabinet secretary or be qualified to run major agencies in a government? 

. . . 

HUNT: Stephen, the other piece, part of your piece, that stood out to me as well, and that I think that some of what we just saw captured a little bit of on video, is this idea of Trump as a cultural force, right? You wrote a little bit about that. The Trump dance in particular. We have now seen kind of across sports fields, there does seem to be a sense that there were people who were not publicly embracing Trump, who, in the wake of the election results, seem willing to do that. 

And that, that cultural shift stood out to me as much in kind of thinking through what we had today newswise, as anything else.

. . . 

There’s also been some conversations about the ways in which these two men [Trump and Musk] are alike, Mark, in ways that I mean, let’s be candid, right? Donald Trump has the kind of profile. There’s not a ton of people out in the world that he necessarily could relate to, right? That are on his same level. But these two men, both share fame. They share in particular, you know, fathers that both describe as, you know, overbearing and very prominent in the early years of their lives. 

And I mean, to Stephen’s point, if they do sustain this relationship, there is a ton at stake.

PRESTON: Look, there’s probably a bond there, to your point, that, that we don’t quite even understand yet. That’s still developing.

HUNT: I mean, he’s in the family photos!

PRESTON: Which is bizarro, which is bizarro.