Blog

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.”

A group of former FCC chairs and top agency officials of both parties are calling on current chairman Brendan Carr to end the early review of broadcast licenses for ABC stations, characterizing it as “an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process.”

In a filing with the FCC on Tuesday, the officials wrote, “The Commission initiated the early renewal process of all eight ABC-owned-and-operated stations one day after the President and First Lady criticized ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel for a joke he made about them.”

They added: “Public reporting and the notice establishing the procedures for this proceeding also suggest that the Chairman has prejudged the outcome of this proceeding and that the Commission may assert the power to terminate the stations’ licenses early. All this betrays that this proceeding is pretext for the Chairman’s continued campaign of suppressing disfavored speech.”

Among those signing on to the filing were Mark Fowler and Dennis Patrick, chairmen of the FCC under Ronald Reagan; Alfred Sikes, chairman under President George W. Bush; and Thomas Wheeler, chairman under Barack Obama.

RELATED: After Trump Threat, FCC Chairman Says ABC’s Decision Not To Carry POTUS Speech Likely To Be Raised In Early Review Of Broadcast Licenses

The FCC under Carr ordered ABC to file renewal applications for its eight owned stations at the end of May, even though the first of the licenses wasn’t set to expire until 2028. Carr has said that the action was as part of an ongoing investigation into Disney’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

ABC filed for renewal, but characterized the action as “an extraordinary demonstration of power and coercion directed at disfavored editorial voices which sends a clear warning to every broadcaster in America.”

As part of the process, the FCC opened up a public comment proceeding.

RELATED: ABC Says “Broad And Cross-Ideological Consensus” Backs ‘The View’ Amid FCC Investigation

In their filing, the former FCC officials noted that two groups, the Center for American Rights and the Media Research Center, had called for the agency to deny the stations’ renewal applications.

The FCC officials said that the groups “ask the Commission to interfere with the stations’ First Amendment-protected editorial discretion: word choices, fact-checks, time covering certain topics, personnel, and the licensees’ perceived viewpoints. These are not legitimate subjects of FCC regulation. Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government may not ‘un-bias’ what it thinks is biased.”

So far, more than 141,000 comments have been received in the station renewal proceeding. The deadline for ABC to reply to the responses is Wednesday.

RELATED: FCC Chairman Proposes Repeal Of National Ownership Cap, Sets August Vote

An FCC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In its petition to deny the licenses, the Center for American Rights cited broadcasters’ public interest obligations. Among other things, they argued that ABC does not provide “a balanced presentation of information on issues of public importance.”

The group wrote: “It is likely lots of ink will be spilled in this proceeding focused on the First Amendment rights of Disney. ABC and its allies will ‘attempt to drape the mantle of First Amendment protection solely around those in the broadcast industry. This approach ignores the rest of the citizens of this country.’ … ABC’s rights are important, but they are not preeminent. It is the right of viewers of ABC stations which must feature first and foremost in this Commission’s considerations.”

In the filing, the former FCC officials called the agency’s early renewal action “virtually unprecedented.” The FCC also launched an investigation and separate proceeding into ABC’s The View and whether it qualifies as a bona fide news program and therefore is exempt from equal-time rules. The network has pushed back on that action as well, also characterizing it as a retaliatory effort to chill free speech.

RELATED: How The FCC Plans To Weigh A Flood Of Public Comments As It Investigates ABC’s ‘The View’

The former FCC officials were represented in the filing by the Protect Democracy Project, Andrew Jay Schwartzman, Gigi Sohn of G Squared Strategies and Berin Szóka of Tech Freedom. They also represented a group of former FCC officials to petition the agency to rescind its news distortion policy, arguing that Carr has used it to launch investigations into news coverage that is protected by the First Amendment.

Other former FCC officials signing on to the filing include Kathryn C. Brown, chief of staff to FCC Chairman William Kennard from 1998-2001; Rachelle B. Chong, a Republican commissioner who served from 1994-97; Jerald Fritz, legal adviser and chief of staff to Fowler from 1981-87; Rosemary Harold, enforcement bureau chief from 2017-22; William T. Lake, media bureau chief from 2009-17; Ruth Milkman, chief of staff to Wheeler from 2013-17; Peter Pitsch, chief of staff to Patrick from 1987-89; Gloria Tristani, Democratic commissioner from 1997-2001; and Christopher J. Wright, general counsel from 1997-2001.

RELATED: GLAAD, HRC, PFLAG Among 40+ Orgs Denouncing FCC’s Attempt To Require “Warning Label” On LGBTQ Programming

A federal judge will allow Donald Trump to again amend his defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, as the publication has moved to dismiss the litigation.

U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday gave Trump until August 27 to file the new complaint.

Trump sued the Times in September, taking particular issue with the premise that Trump’s celebrity fame was due to Mark Burnett and NBC’s The Apprentice. It cited an article from Susanne Craig and Ross Buettner, also named as defendants, and their book Lucky Loser. Their article was headlined, “The Star-Making Machine That Created ‘Donald Trump.’” Penguin Random House also is a defendant in the case, as is Peter Baker, who wrote a piece headlined, “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a
Moment of Judgment.”

.Merryday tossed out Trump’s original lawsuit, but allowed the president to refile. He filed an amended complaint in October, pointing out individual passages in the book and Times articles. Among those cited: “Mark Burnett’s The Apprentice fortified Trump’s fact-free bubble, while also making it national and bankable in ways that Trump never did on his own.”

The Times and other defendants moved to dismiss the new complaint, arguing that the case was filed in an improper venue, Florida, rather than New York, and that Trump failed to “plausibly allege actual malice.” It also noted that “many of the challenged statements express the authors’ subjective interpretations of undisputed facts, which are not capable of being proven false.”

A hearing on the motion to dismiss was held last week, and the judge noted that Trump’s team asked for time to “cure any . . . deficiencies” by showing “why the Challenged Statements are not substantially true, along with additional facts and innuendo by Defendants to show why the Challenged Statements are defamatory, and additional evidence of actual malice for each Defendant.”

On Truth Social on Monday, Trump wrote that the Times “just failed again in their desperate attempt to have our powerful Defamation Lawsuit against them dropped. As we requested, the Highly Respected Judge has called for an updated complaint, which will lay out, in extreme detail, all the ways in which The Times has repeatedly and consistently acted, with actual malice in defaming me, my family, our Great MAGA Movement, and America, itself. We will continue to hold The Times and their ‘comrades’ in the Mainstream Media accountable for publishing, promoting, and dealing in Fake News.”

Charlie Stadtlander, spokesperson for The Times, said in a statement that the judge’s decision “makes no statement in support of the frivolous accusations in Mr. Trump’s earlier complaint. To the contrary, the judge simply gives him yet another chance to draft a complaint that demonstrates any legal merit. The president has had this chance twice previously and failed each time. The Times stands by our journalism, and the president’s legal pleadings will not change that or deter further reporting. We will continue to defend our reporters’ constitutionally protected rights — and the public’s right to know — and are confident in the laws that underpin them.”