President Donald Trump used Friday’s rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner to address his complicated relationship with the press corps, acknowledging his own sensitivities before taking aim at journalists Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon and Kaitlan Collins.
“You can be very, very difficult people,” Trump told the crowd at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington, D.C. “But I’m probably being a little bit oversensitive. Sometimes, I really do think that some of you don’t like me. In fact, I read a report. I get 93 percent negative publicity. … How the hell did I win the election by so much? Think of it. I don’t think that’s true.”
As Trump went on, the president quipped that the crowd was “the largest group of Trump Derangement Syndrome” in one room.
Though Trump took a moment to applaud the press corps’ response to April’s shooting, which derailed the original White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the pleasantries didn’t last long as he proceeded to take aim at journalists, politicians and celebrities who have criticized him.
“I’m not a fan of Lawrence O’Donnell. I like Anderson [Cooper] actually because he’s covered me well for many years. And he went bad as soon as I went for politics, but for years he loved interviews,” Trump said. “I did so many interviews with him, and he was great. But you know, he’s got a little different persuasion than me, in many ways actually. And Lawrence O’Donnell never liked him. Never thought he had any talent. But he’s still making a living, so I can’t knock him. But we had a contest for who had the lowest ratings and the lowest IQ on television, and that was actually Don Lemon, I think.”
Later in his address, Trump ripped into Bette Midler and Jane Fonda for protesting the UFC fight held on the White House lawn, suggesting that “very few people” supported their effort.
“It was between the two of them of the UFC,” he quipped before taking aim at Bruce Springsteen, adding, “What the hell happened to that guy? He looks like hell.”
Trump then zeroed in on Collins, taking umbrage with her big win at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday. He also once again called out her physical appearance, suggesting she “never smiles.”
“I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award,” he told the audience. “It was all about me. It’s a fake. She shouldn’t get the award. It was a fake, but I didn’t mind. I said, Kaitlan, congratulations. But it was fake. There’s no question about it. But she’s a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, Kaitlan, you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position. You’re at CNN fake news. You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan. Just smile.”
At one point during his jab at Collins, Trump compared her to trans influencer and actress Dylan Mulvaney, quipping that he thought she landed a Bud Light campaign.
After Trump concluded his speech, the White House Correspondents’ Association president Weijia Jiang took the stage and defended Collins, telling the crowd the CNN host had “a beautiful smile.”
CNN CEO Mark Thompson also spoke out in defense of the network’s journalists after Trump’s digs.
“We stand by our journalist and the integrity and fair mindedness with which the CNN team reports the news,” Thompson wrote. “Honest, accurate journalism may sometimes irritate politicians, but our right to report and present that reporting to the public without government interference is fully protected by the U.S. Constitution. CNN will continue to exercise this right.”
This wasn’t the only time in the speech Trump complained about the evening’s awards, where many people took home prizes for coverage of the administration’s policies and alleged corruption. “This has not been an easy evening,” Trump notably quipped before his speech.
The dinner originally got underway in April before a shooting scareforced organizers to halt the event. The White House Correspondents’ Association later rescheduled the remainder of the gathering for July 24, bringing its marquee annual event back under heightened security more than three months later.
Trump’s appearance came as his administration remains engaged in an increasingly adversarial relationship with the news media, marked by legal battles involving news organizations including The New York Times and BBC, disputes over White House press access and repeated attacks on major outlets.
Speaking to members of the press directly at the annual event — the first time he’s appeared at the dinner while president after boycotting the gathering in his first term and the first year of his second term — the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner returned at an unusually tense moment for Washington journalism. And Trump’s remarks underscored the complicated relationship between his White House and the news organizations that cover it.
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