CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins responded after President Donald Trump made a transphobic joke about her at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday evening.
Collins received an award celebrating her journalistic achievements thus far from the WHCA; the award was presented to her by her CNN colleague Wolf Blitzer.
Trump, taking the stage afterward, congratulated Collins but cast doubt on the award she had just won and suggested she should “smile more” because she has a “nice position” at “CNN fake news.”
He said:
“I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award. It was all about me. It was a fake, she shouldn’t get the award, it was a fake.”
“But I didn’t mind. I said, ‘Kaitlan, congratulations.’ But it was fake, there’s no question about it.”
“She’s a young attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, ‘Kaitlan do you ever smile? Smile!’ You have a nice position; you’re at CNN fake news.”
“You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan! Just smile.”
He then made a transphobic joke about Collins that referenced transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s controversial Bud Light sponsorship:
“I thought she had really made it big with a major new sponsorship but then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can. It was Dylan Mulvaney. Dylan Mulvaney cost $35 billion in market cap. That was the worst commercial ever made, for those few people who want to hear that.”
“Most people wouldn’t care but I would. I wouldn’t want to hire Dylan anytime soon. Think of it, they hired Dylan Mulvaney and their market cap has gone down by $35 billion. Who wrote that commercial?”
Trump’s joke was met with awkward silence, but he kept rambling on.
Trump’s words were openly transphobic.
Conservatives generated significant controversy for their response to Bud Light’s collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Mulvaney, who gained fame on TikTok for her “Day 365 Of Girlhood” video series, was sent a personalized can of Bud Light with her face on it to commemorate a year since she began her gender transition.
However, the partnership angered many social media users, who quickly called for a boycott of the brand and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch.
The boycott’s impact was evident as Modelo Especial replaced Bud Light as the top beer brand in the United States. Moreover, Bud Light sales saw a significant decrease of nearly 28 percent in the last week of June 2023 compared to the same period the previous year.
Afterward, Collins took to Instagram, where she shared two photos of herself with Blitzer, a video of him announcing her award, a statement from CNN management expressing support for her and other journalists targeted by Trump, as well as the now-famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
In an accompanying caption, she made a nod to Trump’s comments:
“The second best part of last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was receiving an award from my friend and mentor, @wolfblitzer. The first was reminding everyone why the First Amendment—and asking uncomfortable questions that people in power don’t like—matters.”
Many have come to Collins’ defense and criticized Trump’s remarks.
