Kaitlan Collins has said she was not “fazed” after Donald Trump deflected her question about the Epstein files by complaining she never smiled, but said the president’s reaction had been “revealing” about his attitude towards the issue.
“It’s not a laughing matter, I don’t think, to talk about sex trafficking victims. And I’ve interviewed a lot of these women who were underage girls at the time and their stories are powerful,” the CNN anchor told the Absolutely Not podcast Wednesday.
During the exchange, Collins asked about justice for the women victimized by Epstein’s operation, causing the president to become angry and begin ranting about CNN and calling her “the worst reporter.”
He then complained that she never smiled. “You know she’s a young woman,” Trump said to the rest of the room before redirecting to Collins. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile.”
“In that moment, I was thinking, the question is about what these victims think,” Collins said. “It wasn’t even anything accusatory of Trump himself, which I think in itself is revealing of how he thinks about it and how he is viewing it through the lens of himself.
“It’s not about me. It’s not about me smiling and my expressions. It’s what these women think about what your administration has done. And so I think that’s why that moment resonated with so many people because just the issue at hand.”
Collins said that having covered Trump for 10 years he “doesn’t really surprise me that often with his responses,” but given the seriousness of the topic it had resonated with her especially, prompting her steely response.
Trump also lashed out at Collins in December, describing her as “always Stupid and Nasty” in a Truth Social post, and has been consistent in his attacks on other female journalists who have questioned him in the Oval Office and on press trips.
Last week, while flying to Florida on Air Force One, Trump lashed out at another reporter, telling her she had a “very bad attitude” after she questioned him over a reported split within the MAGA base over his immigration agenda.
“Where are you from?” the president asked The Washington Post reporter Natalie Allison. “Washington Post? Are you having a hard time getting readers? The Washington Post is doing very poorly… You have a very bad attitude. Go ahead.”
Despite the president’s use of childish and degrading language towards female reporters taking a notable uptick in the last year, the White House has insisted previously that the insults are “nothing to do with gender.”
“President Trump has never been politically correct, never holds back, and in large part, the American people re-elected him for his transparency,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Independent in December.
“This has nothing to do with gender – it has everything to do with the fact that the president’s and the public’s trust in the media is at all time lows.”
