CNN anchor and senior White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins called out President Donald Trump in a new interview, saying his attack on her over a question about Epstein survivors was “revealing” in that he made it about himself.
The president flipped out on Collins as he took questions during a signing ceremony last week, raging at her for asking about concerns from survivors over the rollout of the newest Epstein Files dump.
Collins asked Trump about survivors’ concerns about redactions and feeling like “they haven’t gotten justice.”
Trump responded by attacking Collins and claiming she never “smiles,” considered a misogynist trope by many.
Collins was a guest on Wednesday’s episode of Heather McMahan’s Absolutely Not podcast, during which she observed that Trump was triggered by a question that was not at all “accusatory” toward him:
HEATHER MCMAHAN: Thank you for holding your ground. I mean you always do you’re again a force to be reckoned with But it was so wild to watch that entire situation go down. I means it I mean, you were like no I’m asking about survivors and I thought you handled it so beautifully. What was your physical response in that that moment? I mean You were just stoic
CNN ANCHOR KAITLAN COLLINS: Well, I mean, I’ve also covered Trump for 10 years and so he doesn’t really surprise me that often with his responses. And so it didn’t really faze me that much because one, you know, he’s not liked my lines of questioning before and I’ve had that moment.
But I think, and I’m always, always maintained this and thought this when covering him, but any president and any, anyone who’s in a position of power funded by taxpayer dollars, when they’re trying to argue with you or belittle you or criticize you, it takes away from the point of the question and it deflects from what you’re actually trying to ask.
And so if you engage with that and you get in that tit for tat or about me not smiling and whatever, which obviously–.
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.
And so I just think in that moment, I was thinking, the question is about what these victims think.
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.
But the point is to ask about what the victims and the survivors thought here.
And so I just thought in that moment, this is more important to stay focused on this and to remind him, this is what I’m asking about.
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.
I mean, if it would have been something else, I’m not sure it would’ve resonated as much. But the question is about women who were survivors of sexual abuse.