‘You heard this?’ CNN host intrigued by reporter’s revelation about GOP senators

CNN’s Audie Cornish perked up her ears at a comment made by one of her panelists about what she’s hearing from Republican senators.

King Charles III visited Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, and the “CNN This Morning” host asked her panelists about the stakes of that diplomatic stop as President Donald Trump attacks Britain and other allies during his war against Iran.

“We are living in the age of, I call it edgelord diplomacy,” Cornish said. “Like, I, as a reporter, finding things out on Twitter – yeah, the Iranian leadership post, their propaganda is all modern and online in a way that sucks. So it was actually very weird to see this moment that is defined by restraint.”

That’s exactly what Republican lawmakers were hoping to see from the president, according to Eleanor Mueller, White House economic policy reporter for Semafor.

“Yeah, we saw Trump opt out of a lot of things in the last couple of days that he normally does,” Mueller said. “He did not, for example, while the king was here, bring reporters into the Oval Office to field questions on every topic imaginable like he usually does, and so clearly, he’s walking a very careful line for him as far as mending this relationship with the UK, and that’s what we heard from Republican senators all week, that they want, you know, the number one thing they said they hoped would come out of this was an improved relationship.”

That caught the host’s attention.

“From Republican senators, you heard this?” Cornish interjected. “Oh, no – say more. What are they? Because obviously this relationship has been damaged with [Prime Minister] Keir Starmer’s response to the president’s requests when it comes to the war on Iran.“

Mueller explained that GOP senators are concerned about a number of things Trump has done in recent months.

“Exactly, and there’s even more than that,” she said. “You know, there’s Trump’s attacks on NATO. There’s the administration’s accusations that the British government is censoring conservative voices, and I was speaking to Sen. [Susan] Collins yesterday as she was getting in an elevator, she was asked, what do you want to see out of Trump’s visit with the king, and she said, you know, mended bridges, improved relationships, and so we’ll see whether or not the camaraderie that we’ve watched in the last 24 hours actually lasts beyond this.”