CNN’s Kaitlan Collins highlighted a striking detail about Donald Trump’s latest personal attack on her.
Namely, it began before she had even asked the president a question.
On Wednesday’s broadcast of “The Source,” anchor Collins noted how Trump launched into a rant about CNN and her while railing against the Justice Department’s decision to drop its controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” during an Oval Office event with reporters.
Before airing the clip, Collins stressed that Trump’s criticism was not actually prompted by anything she had said.
“And just to note, as you’re about to listen to this, this first exchange actually occurred before I had yet to ask the president a question,” she told viewers.
In the exchange, Trump called CNN “crooked as hell” and “a very corrupt organization” and called Collins a “corrupt reporter.”
“Never smiles. A young, beautiful woman. Never smiles,” Trump said of Collins. “I never see a smile on her face. I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like, she has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes, because we do things that everybody wanted and then we win our election in a massive landslide.”
Later, when Collins did ask Trump whether the fund was “dead” or merely “on hold,” the president said he would “have to ask the lawyers” before again slamming “fake news CNN,” telling Collins to “be quiet” and that she should “be ashamed of herself.”
Collins said Trump appeared “clearly irritated” by questions surrounding why “his administration says it is not moving forward with that $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, as they have called it.”
The White House later doubled down on Trump’s attack, posting this on X: