CNN’s Kaitlan Collins gave her take on Donald Trump‘s very personal insults of her at the recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner, telling The Daily Show host Jon Stewart that the key in such situations is to focus on the work at hand.
In his one hour remarks at the dinner on Friday, Trump went after Collins and other journalists, to the point that CNN released a statement when he was still on stage defending their reporters. Collins had received an award from the WHCA earlier in the evening.
“It’s really not about me, and I don’t want it to be about my reaction,” Collins told Stewart. “And so I think if you let it become about that, then it becomes a back and forth between the two of us. … And so I just think in those moments it’s important to put the reminder back on the work, in the question, and on the non-answers that we get.”
Collins did note the lack of reaction to many of Trump’s remarks as he spoke at the dinner, his first time appearing before the group as president. Among other things, Trump went on about how Collins doesn’t smile, something he has done before.
Stewart asked Collins about whether the evening “felt surreal.”
“Was he bombing as hard as it appeared on the TV?” he asked.
Collins replied, “You know, I’ve covered Trump for 10 years, and so I’ve listened to pretty much all of his speeches for 10 years, with very little exception. And so I actually think its helpful for other people to be able to listen to them in their entirety, when people don’t that much these days. In the room, I think I was not surprised when he insulted me. That happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office. This is just a bigger venue where it was happening. What was most surprising to me was 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.”
Collins, who is CNN’s chief White House correspondent, also talked about the differences in the press corps since Trump’s first term. The White House this term has made a point of including more friendlier outlets in the pool. While noting that reporters should be able to ask whatever they want, Collins noted that the friendlier questions may come at the cost of pressing Trump on follow ups.
“I’ve never gotten in a back and forth with him,” she said. “I’ve always brought it back to the question. I think he does surround himself with people who praise him or laugh at his jokes, and when he’s confronted with someone who is asking a challenging question or a critical question of his policy or strategy in the Iran war, I think he doesn’t like it and lashes out over it. I mean, there have been moments where I’ve gone into the Oval Office … on behalf of the TV pool and I haven’t even asked a question yet, and he starts criticizing me. So it’s not even always just about the questions. Sometimes it’s my presence in the room.”
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