President Donald Trump snapping at CNN top reporter Kaitlan Collins for not smiling after she asked about the Epstein files was more than a clumsy deflection of a valid question. It was a worldview.
“Why don’t you ever smile?” He asked her.
“You never smile when you ask a question. You should smile more.”
“You don’t look very happy.”
Smile, girl. Be pretty. Make me think you like me. Deliver your questions like room service, not subpoenas.
Trump has never asked a male correspondent why he isn’t smiling. He didn’t say it to Jim Acosta. He didn’t say it to David Sanger. He didn’t even say it to Don Lemon. Men are allowed to look grim, severe, even hostile, while women are expected to look decorative, happy, even pleasing. Even if they’re asking about rape, corruption, and moral rot, a lady reporter must remember her lip gloss.
Expecting women to grin and bear it is nothing new. When women speak with authority, they are “shrill.” When they persist, they are “scolds.” Flip the gender and men who speak with authority are “experts.” When they persist, they’re geniuses. Or at worst if a man starts to explain something obvious, it’s called “mansplaining,” which we treat like a mildly annoying dinner companion.
What makes Trump’s jab at Collins, 33, especially grotesque is that she was asking about convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It took more than one thousand victims—one thousand!—for America to agree that Epstein was not a misunderstood libertine with powerful friends, but a serial predator running a vertically integrated abuse operation with powerful friends.
Even now, Trump’s instinct is to shrug off Epstein’s crimes and, instead, focus on the real problem: a woman asking tough questions. Yes, it’s her job, but wouldn’t Collins serve the world better if she simply stayed at home and made babies like Usha Vance?
Our culture endlessly excuses men’s bad behavior. We call it “context.” We call it “complicated.” We call it “locker room talk.” Which brings us to longevity expert Dr. Peter Attia and the institutional moral vertigo now on display at CBS.
Attia’s emails with Epstein, ingratiating, immature, and wildly inappropriate, are being waved away as a lapse in judgment. CBS now frames its decision to keep him on air as a brave stand against “cancel culture,” as if basic standards were some kind of authoritarian plot.
But this is not cancel culture. This is character culture.
In a recent statement, Attia described his actions in 2018 as “incredibly naive.” The man was in his forties! His statement also failed to mention that he made the choice to stay and hang out with his pal Jeffrey in Manhattan while his infant son was in an ICU thousands of miles away. (The child’s heart had stopped beating. Fortunately, Attia’s wife, a nurse, was able to revive the baby who did recover.)
Attia has said that he wants to live as long as possible so he can spend meaningful time with his grandchildren. Maybe he can dispense grandfatherly wisdom such as “P---y is, indeed, low carb,” a light observation he emailed to Epstein.
The recent reveal of Attia’s behavior lost him the sponsorship of a protein bar that was also, ironically, low-carb. The makers of David Protein bars concluded, sensibly, that this was not the sort of judgment one wants attached to their brand. CBS, meanwhile, is looking the other way while positioning Attia as a martyr for free speech.
In short, men can show a lack of judgment and keep their jobs, while women can show a lack of enthusiasm and be criticized. And that’s the connective tissue to Trump and his craving for grinning gals.
Trump wants a court, not a press corps. He wants obsequious cabinet members who “dear leader” him until he falls asleep in a surround-sound loop of over-the-top flattery. He wants Collins to smile. Smiles signal obedience. In a way, it’s a compliment – a step up from “Quiet, piggy.”
Of course, Kaitlan Collins does not owe anyone a grin. Nor does any woman connected to the Epstein files, including the victims, reporters, lawyers, and podcasters.
Smiling is what you do when the system is working. Not when it’s protecting monsters.
