NCS’s Kaitlan Collins has responded to being on the receiving finish of President Donald Trump’s insults at Friday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the place he once more berated her for “never smiling.”
In a preview clip from Monday night’s The Daily Show, Collins was requested about the dinner by host Jon Stewart, and the reporter took the excessive street.
“I’ve always felt this, regardless of who’s the president, whether it’s Joe Biden, Donald Trump,” she started. “It’s really not about me, and I don’t want it to be about my reaction. And so I think if you let it become about that, then it becomes a back and forth between the two of us.”
Collins defined that she felt it was “more effective” if viewers focus on the query she requested in moments when the president is insulting her or when he will get “angry.”
“I just think in those moments, it’s important to put the reminder back on the work, on the question, and on the non-answers that we get,” she mentioned.
The 80-year-old president went after Collins throughout his speech, the place he congratulated her for successful the 2026 WHCA award for broadcast for her protection of his contentious assembly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2025.
Trump instructed the room that Collins “shouldn’t get the award. It was a fake, but I didn’t mind.”
“The fact that I got an award for it really bothered him clearly,” Collins quipped to Stewart.
The president repeated his claims that Collins “never smiles” to the room filled with journalists and administration officers.
“I said, ‘Kaitlin, do you ever smile?’ Smile. You have a nice position. You’re at NCS fake news,” the president mentioned. “You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan. Just smile.”
Collins mentioned Monday that she was “not surprised” when Trump insulted her.
“That happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office. This is just a bigger venue where it was happening,” she mentioned. “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 in the room during the president’s remarks.”
Prominent journalists have known as for an finish to the annual dinner after Trump used the alternative to savage Collins and the press during his speech.
“Our mission is to defend the First Amendment rights of White House correspondents to report on the president without fear or favor,” New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker wrote on X after the occasion. “Unfortunately last night did not advance that cause. Time to rethink the dinner.”
Voices throughout the business shared that sentiment, with media columnists branding the dinner an “embarrassment” and a bitterly ironic showcase for the Republican, provided that “no president in the history of this country has devoted more energy and resources to trying to weaken the free press than President Donald Trump,” according to one columnist at the media institute Poynter.
“Why did the association allow such a shameful thing to happen?” media columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote on her Substack.
The White House accused journalists of being unable to take the criticism that they provide the administration in an earlier assertion about the controversy.
“The liberal media can dish it but they can’t take it,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle instructed The Independent in an announcement Monday.
Josh Marcus contributed reporting