Kaitlan Collins Reacts to Trump’s Insults at White House Correspondents’ Dinner: “I’m Used to This Behavior in the Oval Office”
According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Kaitlan Collins, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, stated that she was “not surprised” by U.S. President Donald Trump’s insults during his Friday night speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, noting that such encounters occur regularly in the Oval Office.
Appearing on The Daily Show hosted by Jon Stewart, Collins recalled the event, saying: “I was not surprised when he insulted me. That happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office, and that night was just a bigger venue where it was happening. What struck me more was how quiet the room was during the president’s speech—a room filled with cabinet members, aides, and Republican members of Congress.”
During the ceremony, Collins received an award recognizing her deadline coverage of Trump’s contentious meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, during his address, Trump claimed Collins did not deserve the honor, calling the award “fake.” Going on to criticize the journalist’s serious demeanor, he told her she should smile more and even compared her to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney—a reference to the 2023 Bud Light controversy that sparked a conservative boycott following Mulvaney’s promotion.
Mulvaney responded in a TikTok video on Sunday, saying it was an honor to be compared to Collins and calling the president’s jab “the greatest compliment of all.”
As Collins noted, Trump has a long history of attacking her and deflecting her questions. During their conversation, Jon Stewart pointed out that Collins’ questions are typically very direct and clear. Explaining her approach, Collins said: “The reason I phrase my questions the way I do is because I want anyone—from my family in Alabama to people in the White House and Washington—to hear that question and think, ‘What is the answer to that?’ I don’t want my questions to serve only one political leaning or a specific audience.”
The prominent journalist also expressed gratitude to her CNN colleague Wolf Blitzer, who presented the awards, adding that Blitzer had checked in on her every day since Friday.
Concluding her remarks, Collins emphasized that she refuses to let the moment become a personal feud between herself and Trump: “If you let it become personal, it becomes a back-and-forth between the two of us. Instead, I think it’s far more effective in those moments to remind people of the original question or reporting that upset him in the first place—showing just how much that report, and the recognition it received, bothered him.”
