Jon Stewart is keeping score between Donald Trump and CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
The Daily Show host explained why Collins was so easily winning in the battle Trump has waged on the TV reporter for asking questions. Collins was honored at Friday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner with the Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure. Trump attempted to make light of the award and insult the journalist, but drew minimal laughter from the crowd in his rambling one-hour speech.
“We’re all recovering from the bombing raid that the president of the United States pulled on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” Stewart joked on his Weekly Show podcast episode released on Wednesday. “Not so f---ing easy, is it, buddy boy!”
Stewart was amused by Trump’s inability to make his jokes—several of them insults aimed at Collins—land, but also by the president’s struggles to best the CNN star despite insulting her publicly on a regular basis.
“Once again, in the battle between Kaitlan Collins and Donald Trump: point, Collins,” he said.
Stewart added that he estimates the “score” between the pair to be “somewhere around 328 to zero.” Collins’ “sophistication, focus, and class,” he said, “is just wiping the floor with that dude.”
Trump said at the dinner on Friday, “I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award,” he began. “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,” he rambled.
Later, he compared Collins to transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney in another attempt to demean her.
“I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship,” Trump also said during his awkward remarks. “But then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney.”
Mulvaney became a target of MAGA after Bud Light selected her as an ambassador of the brand. Multiple outlets reported that the crowd was stunned into silence as his jokes fell flat. The cringe speech has even been slammed by Trump’s fellow Republicans.
Collins told Stewart when she visited The Daily Show on Monday, “In the room, I think... I was not surprised when he insulted me,” she told Stewart. “That happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office. This is just a bigger venue where it was happening.”
Stewart reveled in the failure on Wednesday. “You know, as a comedian, you know, when you watch somebody bombing like that, the traditional thing to say is, ‘Hey, don’t quit your day job.’ But I think in the president’s case, I think we would all make an exception.”
The host also joked that Trump could potentially have a future in comedy: “I think he can improve. I think he’s got some timing. But the ‘weave’ didn’t quite work with some of the more concise roasts.”
