Journalist Kaitlan Collins is breaking her silence after President Donald Trump continued to attack her looks, comparing her to trans actress Dylan Mulvaney and claiming the CNN reporter needs to smile more.
“I’ve always felt this, regardless of who’s the president … it’s really not about me, and I don’t want it to be about my reaction. If you let it become about that, then it becomes a back-and-forth between the two of us,” Collins, 34, said on the Monday, July 27, episode of The Daily Show. “Instead, I think it’s more important to remind people in those moments when he is insulting me, he is criticizing me … it’s important to put the reminder back on the work, on the question, and on the non-answers that we get.”
The Daily Show host Jon Stewart pointed out that the ballroom in the Waldorf Astoria was largely silent while Trump lit into her at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Friday, July 24.
“I’ve covered Trump for 10 years so I’ve listened to pretty much all of his speeches with very little exception. I actually think it’s helpful for people to listen to [his speeches] in their entirety, which people really don’t these days. In the room, I was not surprised when he insulted me,” she said. “That happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office — this was just a bigger venue where it was happening. What was most surprising to me is that the room was filled with a lot of his staffers, his cabinet, his allies, Republicans in Congress. It was so quiet in the room during the president’s remarks.”
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Collins’ comments come after Trump, 80, made controversial remarks about the CNN anchor’s appearance at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday.
“[Collins is] a young, attractive woman. She never smiles,” Trump said of Collins — one of many instances in which the commander-in-chief has commented on her appearance. “I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position, you’re at CNN fake news, you should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan, just smile.”
The president then made a comment about previously mistaking Collins for transgender actor Mulvaney, 29.
“I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I was informed that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can; it was Dylan Mulvaney.” (Mulvaney, a vocal LGBTQ+ activist, received backlash by right-wing politicians and anti-trans influencers for her 2023 campaign with Bud Light in which her face was placed on beer cans.)
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Collins hinted that she was unbothered by Trump’s remarks on Saturday, July 25, sharing an empowering quote from the former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt via her Instagram Story.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” the quote read as part of Collins’ recap of the celebratory evening, in which she received an award for her reporting on Trump’s infamously contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Mulvaney responded to the viral moment on Sunday, July 26, sharing a TikTok video thanking the president for “reminding me that I am more powerful than I even knew.”
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“To quote my favorite recording artist, Shea Diamond, ‘I am America,’” she added.
That same day, Trump doubled down on his comparison between Collins and Mulvaney by sharing an AI-generated image via TruthSocial of the anchor seemingly morphed with the former SIX The Musical star.
In the photo, Collins’ face appeared to be placed on Mulvaney’s body, holding a can of Bud Light, which Mulvaney did in 2023 to promote her partnership with the brand amid March Madness.
When asked to comment on Trump targeting the reporter and her looks, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Us in a statement, “The liberal media can dish it but they can’t take it.”
