Donald Trump launched a personal attack on Tuesday against one of his favorite media targets: CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.
In his latest criticism, the 80-year-old president took issue with an unspecified panel discussion that Collins moderated.
“Very dumb and unhappy Fake News CNN ‘reporter,’ Kaitlan Collins (really low ratings, also!), had a panel where discussions were all FICTION AND LIES. You would think that CNN, which is suffering terribly in the TV Ratings, would get rid of their 3rd rate ‘anchors,’ and try to bring credibility back to their once storied network. It is fading FAST!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Collins’ latest panel on The Source occurred Monday night, in which the topic of discussion was the Trump administration struggling to address Americans’ affordability concerns. Collins introduced the topic by playing clips of Trump insisting that the economy is great—“the economy’s the greatest economy we’ve ever had, by far”—and then citing a Reuters/Ipsos poll from last month showing that 71 percent of Americans disapproved of his handling of cost-of-living issues.
Discussing the disconnect between Trump’s words and the public’s sentiment were CNN Political Director David Chalian, CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Paul Begala, and Kevin Madden, the former presidential campaign adviser to Mitt Romney.
“Here’s the reality,” Chalian began. “The president can say anything he wants on this topic. Voters live and experience what the economy is every day in their lives. So, it actually is more noise than anything else, because people are going to vote based on what they’re experiencing in their pocketbooks.”
Begala added, “you can’t message your way out of inflation.” It is “a career killer,” he said, citing former Presidents Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter.
Trump’s post is yet another attack against Collins, who he has said should “smile” more.
“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,” Trump said at July’s White House Correspondents Association dinner.
He then made a joke about Collins resemembling transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
“I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship,” Trump said. “But then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney.”
The president has also publicly lashed out at her during press briefings in the Oval Office.
The CNN anchor, 34, has remained above the fray amid Trump’s public comments.
“I just think in those moments, it‘s important to put the reminder back on the work, and the question and the non-answers we get,” she told Jon Stewart later in July. “It’s not really about me and I don’t want it to be about my reaction. I think if you let it become about that, then it becomes a back-and-forth between the two of us.”
Collins is one of several female journalists that Trump has insulted in personal terms.
The president called Bloomberg News correspondent Catherine Lucey “piggy” when she asked about the Epstein files last November, and last month lost his cool when Collins’ colleague, Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes, asked him a routine question in the Oval Office.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
