JD Vance wants White House reporters to have more fun on the job.
The vice president, 41, offered words of advice for the White House press corps after President Donald Trump laid into CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins for not smiling while she was asking him a question about Epstein survivors.
“What would you say to survivors–” Collins, 33, began to ask on Tuesday when Trump, 79, interrupted.
“You are so bad. You know, you are the worst reporter. No wonder—CNN has no ratings because of people like you. She’s a young woman. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. I’ve known you for 10 years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smile on your face.”
“Well I’m asking about survivors,” Collins could be heard saying behind the camera.
Trump ignored her and went on to say, “You know why you’re not smiling? Because you know you’re not telling the truth, and you’re a very dishonest organization, and they should be ashamed of you.”
Vance said he wasn’t in the room for the tense interaction, but was later shown a clip of it. He weighed in on the incident in a Wednesday interview with Megyn Kelly.
“She’s asking a question, the president says, ‘Why don’t you ever smile?’ Yeah, it’s actually, like, so perceptive,” Vance said. “Even if you’re asking a tough question, even if you take your job very seriously, like, does it always have to be so antagonistic?”
“Have some fun, right? You can’t always take yourself too seriously. You’re gonna have a heart attack,” he went on. “And that’s too much of the Washington press corps. And of course, they don’t act like that when the other guys are in power, so there is a political bias angle to it.”
Vance went on to claim that audiences would trust the media more “if they actually express the range of emotions.”
“I’m not saying you have to agree with everything that me or President Trump do, but nobody is angry all the time, and when you come across as angry all the time, it’s just fake,” he argued.
Trump has long been combative with Collins and several other female reporters. In an April press conference, he insulted Collins as a “low-rated anchor.” In December, he blasted her as “Stupid and Nasty” in a scathing Truth Social post.
Though Collins didn’t detail her thoughts on her latest clash with Trump, she said the president’s response to her Epstein-related question “shed some light” about his thoughts on the files.
CNN did not immediately return a request for comment on Vance’s remarks.
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