{"id":7725,"date":"2026-07-16T14:51:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7725"},"modified":"2026-07-16T14:51:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:51:25","slug":"when-did-this-get-so-hard-kasie-hunt-mystified-when-gop-senator-calls-question-about-2020-election-a-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7725","title":{"rendered":"\u2018When Did This Get So Hard?\u2019 Kasie Hunt Mystified When GOP Senator Calls Question About 2020 Election a \u2018Game\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>Sen. <strong>John Kennedy<\/strong> (R-LA) threw CNN\u2019s <strong>Kasie Hunt<\/strong> for a loop when he referred to a straightforward question about the 2020 election as a \u201cgame.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the Senate confirmation hearings of many of President <strong>Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong> nominees, Democratic senators have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blumenthal.senate.gov\/newsroom\/press\/release\/icymi-video-trump-judicial-nominees-refuse-to-answer-blumenthals-question-who-won-the-2020-election\">asked<\/a> the nominees who the winner of the 2020 election was. The nominees have typically acknowledged that<strong> Joe Biden<\/strong> was the president, but have avoided saying Biden won or Trump lost the election. Quite infamously, Trump has falsely claimed that the contest was rigged against him. For the most part, humoring this delusion has become necessary for Republicans to remain in Trump\u2019s good graces.<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy joined Wednesday\u2019s edition of <em>The Arena<\/em>, where Hunt played a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/im-not-an-election-denier-trumps-new-dni-nominee-says-under-oath-joe-biden-won-the-2020-election\/\">clip<\/a> from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/tom-cotton-furiously-ends-trump-dni-nominees-hearing-as-democrats-ask-for-more-time\/\">confirmation hearing<\/a> of <strong>Jay Clayton<\/strong>, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The president has nominated him to be the next Director of National Intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>In the clip, Sen.<strong> Mark Warner<\/strong> (D-VA) asked, \u201cDid Joe Biden win the 2020 election?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUh, Senator, I\u2019m not an election denier,\u201d Clayton responded. \u201cJoe Biden was certified as the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere, Sen. <strong>Jon Ossoff<\/strong> (D-GA) asked the nominee, \u201cWho won the 2020 election?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clayton claimed he \u201canswered\u201d the question, but at no point did he say Biden \u201cwon\u201d the election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did not want to straight say that President Biden won the 2020 election,\u201d Hunt noted to Kennedy. \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, I don\u2019t know,\u201d Kennedy replied. \u201cBut there\u2019s this little game, if you followed all the committees, it happens every time we have a nominee in Judiciary, where the Democrats\u2026 want the nominee to use the magic words that Trump lost the election. And the nominees, understandably, in my opinion, don\u2019t want to play that game. I haven\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut how is it a game?\u201d Hunt interjected. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s just what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, it is a game. Kasie,\u201d Kennedy protested. \u201cSo, it\u2019s a game of words by my Democratic colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy then turned the matter on its head by defending the nominees, noting that none of them had claimed Trump won the 2020 election.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSure, but again, I mean, we live in a democracy where, in the past, everyone called the winner to concede and say, \u2018Congratulations on your win. It was a tough loss for me.\u2019 What does it say about where we are that you think that this is a game of words? I mean, when did this get so hard?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell, look, I\u2019m biased, but I think the Democrats have made it hard,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s any doubt about the fact that Joe Biden was the president. And I haven\u2019t heard a single nominee by President Trump say Donald Trump won the election and Joe Biden didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Watch above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) threw CNN\u2019s Kasie Hunt for a loop when he referred to a straightforward question about the 2020 election as a \u201cgame.\u201d During the Senate confirmation hearings of many of President Donald Trump\u2019s nominees, Democratic senators have asked the nominees who the winner of the 2020 election was. The nominees have typically&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screen-Shot-2026-07-15-at-3-08-56-PM.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}