{"id":2463,"date":"2026-07-30T16:41:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/?p=2463"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:41:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:41:01","slug":"cnns-kaitlan-collins-breaks-silence-after-trump-called-her-award-fake-in-front-of-the-entire-correspondents-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/?p=2463","title":{"rendered":"CNN\u2019s Kaitlan Collins breaks silence after Trump called her award \u2018fake\u2019 in front of the entire Correspondents\u2019 Dinner"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Credit \/ The Daily Show and Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

CNN\u2019s Kaitlan Collins speaks out after Trump told her to \u2018smile more\u2019 and called her award \u2018fake\u2019 at the Correspondents\u2019 Dinner.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins has broken her silence after Donald Trump publicly mocked her at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner on Friday, telling the room she should not have won her award and that she needed to smile more.<\/p>\n

Collins, 34, had just received the 2026 WHCA award for broadcast journalism for her coverage of Trump\u2019s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2025. Trump used his speech to dismiss it.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe shouldn\u2019t get the award,\u201d he told the room.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was a fake, but I didn\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then added: \u201cShe never smiles. I said, \u2018Kaitlan, do you ever smile?\u2019 Smile. You have a nice position. You\u2019re at CNN fake news. You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan. Just smile.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018This is just a bigger venue\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Collins appeared on\u00a0The Daily Show\u00a0with Jon Stewart on Monday night and addressed the moment directly, saying she was not surprised by Trump\u2019s comments, only by the reaction of the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office,\u201d she told Stewart.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart jokingly asked whether the silence was out of respect for the president. Collins replied: \u201cWho\u2019s to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

She explained why she chose not to react in the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always felt this, regardless of who\u2019s the president, it\u2019s really not about me and I don\u2019t want it to be about me. If you let it become about that, then it becomes a back and forth between the two of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the dinner, Collins posted an Eleanor Roosevelt quote on Instagram:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one can make you feel inferior without your consent.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her caption she wrote that the best part of the evening was reminding everyone why the First Amendment and asking uncomfortable questions matters.<\/p>\n

Trump also targeted Dylan Mulvaney<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Collins was not the only one in Trump\u2019s crosshairs that evening. He also took aim at trans activist and influencer Dylan Mulvaney, comparing her to Collins and referencing the 2023 Bud Light sponsorship controversy.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I was informed it wasn\u2019t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney,\u201d Trump said, before claiming Mulvaney had cost the brand $35 billion in market cap.<\/p>\n

Mulvaney responded in a four-minute TikTok, saying being mocked by the administration was \u201cthe greatest compliment of all\u201d because it put her \u201cin the company of some of the most brilliant, empathetic people in our world today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit \/ The Daily Show and Getty CNN\u2019s Kaitlan Collins speaks out after Trump told her to \u2018smile more\u2019 and called her award \u2018fake\u2019 at the Correspondents\u2019 Dinner. CNN journalist … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-2463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trending","tag-breaking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2464,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463\/revisions\/2464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}