My guest tonight, CNN's award-winning chief White House correspondent and anchor of The Source with Kaitlan Collins. Please welcome to the program, Kaitlan Collins.
This is so fun to be here.
It's fun. Let me ask you a question.
How was your weekend? What did you do? Anything fun?
It was good. It was quiet.
Was that? That was Friday night.
There are times when I watch him and I think to myself, this can't be real. Like, this can't be America. America, you've heard of us. We're great.
You've been here for years.
Yes. We're number one. We're the best. That guy runs us. What in the room that night? Did it feel surreal? Did he was he bombing as hard as it appeared on the TV?
You know, I've covered Trump for 10 years and so I've listened to pretty much all of his speeches for 10 years with very little exception. And so I actually think it's helpful for other people to be able to listen to them in their entirety, which people really don't that much these days. In the room, I think I was not surprised when he insulted me. That happens pretty regularly inside the Oval Office. This is just a bigger venue where it was happening.
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.
Do you because of how much they respect him?
Hard to tell really. In your mind, having view. First of all, what do you think is going on with his relationship to you? You are, I have to give you a great amount of credit. You are unflappable in those. You ask very straightforward questions. I have, I've written some stuff down about like, you've asked about, you pardoned the founder of Binance. All these different things you're asking him about, that very straightforward question about why he pardoned this gentleman who now has an involvement in his family's crypto business or had helped promote it. His answer to you on that was, you said to him, 'This guy admitted to his crimes.' Trump said to you, 'You don't know much about crypto. You know nothing about nothing. You're fake news.'
But he didn't answer the question.
And then he said he didn't really know who the person was.
Right. Why? You are very straightforward with him. You don't play coy. You don't frame it in gotcha ways. And he just, 'You're a terrible person. You're a stupid person. You don't smile.' When that's done, does someone, is there an office of like smoothing things out that comes to your office and says, like in a bar when your friend gets in a fight, like, 'Hey man, he's drunk. Like, I'm so sorry.' Like, what do they do? Are they embarrassed?
You know, but that's why I ask the questions the way I do is because I want anyone to be able to listen to what I'm asking, whether that's at a briefing or during a moment with the president, and think, you know, I want to know the answer to that, too. Or that is a good question. I don't want it to only serve one audience or one political leaning. I want anyone, you know, from my family in Alabama to people in the White House to people in Washington to be able to hear that answer or hear that question and think, what is the answer to that? And so,
Well, the answer is very clearly, you should smile more.
It's the answer to all the questions.
Here's, I want to have you. It's stunning to me. We were watching when he was doing that, you were sitting next to Wolf Blitzer.
Wolf Blitzer is a 78-year-old man. Not a lot of density in those bones. I know what I'm talking about. I'm in the same position. He looked like he wanted to go up there and shake him. He was so angry on your behalf. But you don't get angry. How does it, how do you maintain that level of detachment?
Well, first off, can I say about Wolf? Wolf actually picked me up for the dinner that night and we rode together to go to the dinner. He was presenting the awards that night after he was supposed to do them back in April. When he still has his license, Wolf is an excellent driver. But we went to the dinner together and Wolf and I are really good friends. He was one of the first people that I met when I worked at, when I started at CNN, right? And he's called me every day since Friday and he's just a dear friend. But actually, one of the best parts of the dinner was Wolf reading the descriptions of the awards in front of him and why people, why the reporters got them. You know, my colleagues who also did esteemed reporting, great reporting, and deserved those awards. And so, I loved hearing Wolf read the descriptions of what they were and why people got them.
In terms of my reaction, I've always felt this regardless of who's the president, whether it's Joe Biden, Donald Trump, those are the two I've covered. 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. And instead, I think it's more effective to remind people in those moments when he is insulting me or when he is criticizing me about the question I asked or the reporting that I did that he was so angry about in this moment. And the fact that I got an award for it really bothered him clearly. And so 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.
It's a, you do it very well. So, and I appreciate that answer, but what if we could make it about you and the way you behave? What if you took a page out of his book? I've come up with a little role play.
You can be you in this or you could be Trump. It's up to you. I think you'd probably be better off being Trump on this one. So let's say you're Trump and I'm you. This is just a chance for you to kind of play his game. He's so concerned about appearance. So play in that arena. All right. So you're Donald Trump. Call on me. Kaitlan Collins, CNN.
I'm really nervous about this.
The big beautiful bill took a million children off of food assistance.
Why are your hands so up?
