The Hoya with exclusive backstage access to the RNC

She had breakfast with Eric Trump

Standing behind the teleprompter at the RNC, Georgetown sophomore, Caroline Borzilleri could see who was regurgitating the speech written for them by GOP officials, and who went off script:

“Chris Christie, for example,” she told The Tab, “ad-libbed much of his ‘prosecution of Hillary’ after the first question-and-answer segment in which the crowd was prompted to accuse Clinton of guilt.”

“Written into Newton Gingrich’s remarks was a thank you to Cruz for his support of the candidate, a section that had to be improvised in the moment from the podium.”

Lights, camera, action. The Republican National Convention.  A monumental event that took over Cleveland, Ohio. A moment in history most saw the commercialized, filtered, televised version of. But Caroline, a GU Politics Convention Ambassador was lucky enough to see the cogs working behind the scene.

Caroline spent seven hours a day “keeping everything in order and trying to help manage the crowds, assisting other interns in booking political surrogates for TV appearances, and working in the GOP TV studio in the Quicken Loans Center to prepare the space for interviews and TV appearances by politicians and political surrogates.”

From her efforts, Caroline saw the RNC in ways most Americans couldn’t.

She visited the CNN Grill, where CNN held its headquarters for the reports and production teams, on the day of the largest protest. “We watched police officers, mounted police, and SWAT teams attempt to control the action, which we had been warned about as a pre-planned flag burning taking place just outside one of the entrances to the Convention.”

Similarly, Caroline and her the other Georgetown interns ate breakfast with Eric Trump, a Georgetown alumnus. Caroline, who doesn’t support Trump, said: “We all walked away from that amazing, personal experience with an extremely positive impression of Eric and his incredible hospitality and generosity to share his time with us.”

Despite anticipating the constant flow of activity, Caroline admitted that it was all “greater than she expected….Even away from the floor of the Q there were always events, media appearances, and a general rush of people off to do important things with important people throughout the week.”

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