New Hampshire showdown: Why Trump is connecting with voters and Haley and DeSantis have not

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I could give you 30 different reasons why Ron DeSantis flamed out before today’s New Hampshire primary.

Plenty of media folks are delighting in kicking him when he’s down – worst campaign of all time and so on – and his relentlessly negative coverage, augmented by his own mishandling of the media, is a factor.

WHY DESANTIS CANCELING SUNDAY SHOWS (INCLUDING MINE) LED TO HIS QUITTING THE RACE

But it comes down to something more existential.

One exchange on my show, about Donald Trump, has stuck with me.

I was talking about both MSNBC and CNN dumping out of Trump’s Iowa victory speech, and the former president declaring this was so unfair that NBC and CNN (which does not have a federal license) should be taken off the air.

Now I agree with Trump on the substance–and so does new CNN boss Mark Thompson, who told his staff the network should have carried more of the speech, according to the New York Times–but not on the remedy. Networks shouldn’t be kicked off the air because a president doesn’t like the coverage.

I asked my liberal "Media Buzz" guest, Leslie Marshall, about Trump’s threat, and she said his supporters "want to be entertained by him using nicknames for everyone," or in the case of mocking Nikki Haley’s Indian name, "racial shading."

BRET BAIER: WORDS BETWEEN TRUMP AND HALEY WILL LIKELY GET ‘UGLIER’

Trump, like him or loathe him, is an