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Trump, 80, Launches Unhinged Attack on Kaitlan Collins

The latest attack came during an impromptu White House briefing.

Donald Trump has unleashed another vicious attack on CNN star Kaitlan Collins as he mounted a furious defense of embattled Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.

One week after facing an extraordinary midterm wipeout, the president made an unexpected appearance in the White House on Monday afternoon to brief journalists alongside UFC boss Dana White.

After joking that he wanted White to be his press secretary and providing an update on the Iran war after a productive meeting with Qatar officials earlier in the day, Trump took questions from reporters.

It didn’t take long for the 80-year-old president to revert to form.

Asked by Collins if he would stand by Hegseth if he ends up being impeached by Congress, Trump replied: “Yeah, I’ll stand by him,” claiming “he won two wars”—an apparent reference to the strike on Venezuela and the Iran war, which is still ongoing.

Collins pressed him further.

“Massie says he carried out an illegal act,” she told him, citing the articles of impeachment GOP Rep. Thomas Massie introduced into the House on Monday.

“Massie’s a loser—just like you’re a loser at CNN!” an angry Trump fired back.

“Just like your ratings are a loser. Massey is a loser, stone cold loser!”

The last-minute briefing was the first since the midterm election rout that led to Democrats seizing back control of Congress and flipping traditional Republican strongholds such as Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.

During the briefing, Trump described the result as “ridiculous” as he raged about the stock market plunging in the wake of the election.

He also declared he would pardon former professional baseball player Pete Rose, doubled down on his decision to appoint Stephen Miller as his new chief of staff, and defended Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, who is now under investigation over an affair with a Chinese spy.

“I did speak to him today just to see if he’s feeling all right, how you’re doing,” Trump said. “He said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy.”

But his tirade against Collins was a reminder that even in lame duck status, the president will continue to lash out at the press, particularly female reporters who challenge him.

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He has previously admonished Collins for not smiling enough; blasted Washington Post reporter Natalie Allison for asking about fractures in his base over his deportation strategy; told Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey “quiet, piggy!” after she asked about the Epstein files; and said 60 Minutes correspondent Norah O’Donnell was a “disgrace” for bringing up his ties to Jeffrey Epstein during an interview.

The president’s latest tirade nonetheless comes at a sensitive time for the administration, and for Hegseth, who faces a brutal battle this week to save his job.

The articles of impeachment introduced by Massie on Monday accuse Hegseth of waging a war in violation of the War Powers Resolution, ignoring laws to minimize civilian casualties, carrying out extrajudicial killings, suppressing free speech, kidnapping a sovereign leader, and the unlawful war in Yemen.

Trump has reportedly been considering whether to fire Hegseth, but told reporters on Monday that he still had faith in him.

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“What about impeaching the people that ran the Vietnam War? What about impeaching the ones who ran Iraq and Afghanistan and all of these other wars?” he said.

“You know, we lost 18 people. Eighteen. They lost 65,000 in Vietnam. We’re in there for seven months. They’re in there for 21 years. What about impeaching those people? What about impeaching the leaders of these stupid wars that were done with nothing was gained?”

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Farrah TomazinPolitical Correspondent

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